LIB RARY OFJCONGR ESS, 

Shelf. J^IN/fiT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 



\ 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA, 



AND 



OTHER POEMS. 



BY 



/ 



john Mcdowell lbavitt. 




Cbc* 



NEW 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND COMPANY, 

182 Fifth Avenue. 

1895. 



Copyright, 1895, 
By John McDowell Leavitt. 



Hnibcrsitg Press : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



To Bithia! 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Visions of Solyma 1 

Faith 27 

Cozcilia , 40 

Afranius 53 

Ariston 104 

Belshazzar 120 

The Deluge 132 

The Periods 145 

Song of the Light 160 

Maryland : A Centennial Poem 162 

The Photograph 171 

Paul Parson 173 

The Hills 177 

The Clouds 179 

Boabdil's Lament on the Hill of Tears 182 

Ayxa's Rebuke for Boabdil's Lament 184 

The Deity 186 

Shadows 187 

Liberty 188 

Song of the Fourth Day 189 



viii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Our Flag 190 

Leaves 192 

A Song in Heaven to Home 193 

Above 194 

The Rainbow 196 

Israel's March-Word 197 

The Heart's Master. 199 

Our Country 201 

Serenade 202 

Madrigal 203 

On a Birthday 204 

Solicitude 206 

Regret 208 

The Useful and the Beautiful 210 

Heaven 212 

Visioned Nations 213 

My Political Menagerie 222 

Our Stars on the Sea 224 

The Owl 225 

The Lark . . 226 

My Rose 227 

The Real and the Ideal 229 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 



ONCE pictured on an ancient palace-wall 
I read the stories of a nation's past ; 
Now, like those forms, from memory's mystic hall 
Scenes of my life come crowding thick and fast, 
Painted in vision'd hues too bright to last. 
Fair as a dream I see my boyhood's home, 
The river's morning gleam, with shadows cast 
From hills whose solemn sides I loved to roam ; 
And e'en the clouds seem those I left on heaven's blue dome. 

Oh, sweet and dear the spot ! A father's face, 
A mother's smile I see, and love's light o'er 
Whate'er to youth could give its charm and grace, 
Then joy for manhood in the memory store — 
All as I muse comes thrilling back once more, 
Nor lost will be when Paradise shall bloom. 
Yes ! Heav'n while we with cherubim adore 
For earth's old home will in our hearts leave room, 
Nor dazzle childhood's day into oblivion's gloom. 

1 



2 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

I left that spot at duty's trumpet-call 
When manhood drew to battle in life's war ; 
How peaceful seem'd the calm ancestral hall 
When round me burst the sounds of earth's wild jar, 
And mists and storms made dim youth's morning star ! 
Yet struggle only vigor gives to man 
As flight to eaglets strength, who, circling far, 
Grow as they mount, in Heaven's eternal plan, 
Until the monarch-bird soars high because he can. 

Oh, now what face is rising o'er my soul 
As once the moon her beauty from the sea 
I saw uplift where midnight billows roll 
Which flung back shatter'd beams to sadden me ! 
'T is thou, my Ida ! Yes, I look on thee ! 
Thine are those eyes in their dark lustrous gaze 
Bright-imaged by my heart on memory ! 
Oh, from the altar's flowers and torch's blaze 
Until thy sun was set thy love made blest my days. 

Once, towering o'er a cat'ract's roar, two trees 
Stood wedded by a faithful limb between ; 
Born from the spray and floating on the breeze, 
And crowning both were circling rainbows seen 
That flung bright glories round the mingling green. 
Lo, see the tempest hurl his bolt of fire, 
And thunder on those trees as it had been 
"Destruction blasting in his midnight ire ! 
The lonely living left did with slow wounds expire. 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 3 

Shines from my past a light of golden years 
When Love two married hearts tuned into one. 
Joy then smiled to brighten sorrow's tears 
As rain-drops take the splendors of the sun 
To paint the clouds when storms their work have done. 
Then children came to gladden my life's day 
With grace and light which earth from heav'n has won. 
Now o'er those years my pensive soul will stray 
As Age yet loves to linger 'mid the flowers of May. 

Say, like a shadow on the light of noon, 
Or sigh of woe in summer's joyous strain ; 
Say, like a tempest shrouding round the moon, 
Or like a wail of agonizing pain 
When festal music over kings has reign — 
Oh, say, was this what thrill'd into my heart ? 
Prophetic fear ! at memory's call again 
The mortal pang I feel within me dart 
Which piercing once the soul will never from it part. 

In morning light, and anchor'd in the bay 
How bright I see a ship of sunny France 
Around whose masts the brilliant pennants play ! 
The kiss, the tear, the farewell word and glance, 
And while the sunbeams o'er the waters dance 
A thunderous noise I hear as if of pain 
Which out to ocean tells the ship's advance ! 
My Ida onward glides to meet the main ; 
Oh, may the skies of France her bloom bring back again ! 



4 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

What meant that fatal yellow in her cheek 
Like some prophetic tinge in autumn's leaf ? 
Mine eyes were blind when I the cause could seek. 
Fast fades her form ! vain, vain my cry and grief ! 
Ida, come back ! my heart must find relief ! 
Faint down the bay still wave the tokens white ! 
Long woe before makes bliss behind how brief ! 
Clouds hide no more the sun ! stars smile in light ! 
Sing, murmuring, winds of day ! sleep, billows in the night ! 

The throb of power still pulses in the sea 
To drive the ship through mist and storm and wave. 
Ida, the shores of France are seen by thee ! 
Not in the deep still sea thy lonely grave 
Which hears no sound when requiem-tempests rave. 
Gleams from yon church a cross on morning's sky 
Where wives of sailors call their saints to save. 
Haven of Grace, how oft a joyful eye 
Beholds through tear and storm salvation's ensign nigh ! 

The clouds are gone ! the sun is on the deep ! 
A sabbath stillness rules the summer air. 
Upon the deck I see my Ida weep 
At thought of him whose heart she knows is there. 
But joy soon brightens through the gloom of care, 
And, glorious France, her step is on thy shore ! 
Land of the song and vine, so gay, so fair, 
Paint, with thy roses paint, that cheek once more, 
And kindle in her eyes the light they had before ! 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 5 

Paris, soon thee my Ida doth behold ! 
Lo, at thy name, stands Paris in mine eye, 
Priam's impurpled son in gem and gold 
Flush'd in the light of beauty's majesty 
With Helen, Grecian Venus, glittering by 
Like love's star in a cloud of crimson pride, 
While round the shaking walls the engines ply ! 
Fierce war is thundering on the city's side, 
And gods o'er smiling Troy in battle's fury ride. 

Kings, Paris, piled thy palaces so fair 
With treasures wrench'd from want when tyrants sway 'd 
Thy queenly beauty rose into the air 
From stones in blood and groans by wretches laid ; 
The crown about thy brow in glory ray'd 
Is metal melted from red battle's spoil. 
Thy giddy monarchs with the earthquakes play'd 
And ruin sowed o'er France with reckless toil — 
The harvest burst in death out from a poison-soil. 

Versailles, who built thee in thy royal pride, 
And taught thy brilliant fountains how to play ? 
Wealth, won by savage war which right defied, 
Deck'd pictured halls where jewell'd princelings stray 
With wantons flaunting shame before the day. 
Grand Louis, France, drain'd out thy blood from thee, 
And made thy flesh remorseless battle's prey — 
He lit the spark whose flames he did not see 
When throne and altar blazed, and demons glared in glee. 



6 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

Thou Place of Concord, bright with spoils of art, 
Thy grace, thy beauty earth has seldom seen, 
Where fountain, column, obelisk have part ; 
And sister-cities smile round in thy sheen, 
Paris, more fair than all that yet has been ! 
Yet, Seat of Peace, here monarch blood once flow'd ; 
Here, like a royal flow'r, fell France's Queen, 
While Eevolution's wildest tempests roar'd, 
And wretches mock'd the God whom cherubim adored. 

Gray Saint Denis, what revel-rage in thee 
Bursts from dim aisles where sleeps in marbled pride 
The dust throned once o'er France in majesty ? 
A torch's glare is on the column's side 
And o'er the altar flames a blood-red tide ! 
Hurl'd out from royal tombs the skulls of kings 
In mockery piled o'er ghastly bones preside. 
With wrongs of years Despair the mad mob stings 
And o'er the wond'ring stones those gleams of vengeance 
flings. 

Paris, black once more thy palace-walls ! 
Behold Saint Cloud looks ruin'd on the Seine, 
And silence glooms again in banquet-halls ! 
Why did Napoleon's column plead in vain, 
Then crash in fragments down as if in pain ? 
Hark ! Gallic cannon, and the German shell ! 
In fire and blood, France, 'tis demons reign, 
And hurl o'er frighten'd earth the torch of hell ! 
The woe of that long night not mortal pen may tell. 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 7 

No hues too black to paint the Commune's crime ; 
Yet kings and nobles show'd wild mobs the way, 
And first peal'd ruin on the ear of time. 
This name a glare from that old fatal day 
When, France, thy Charles at massacre did play, 
His royal mother urging on the shot ! 
Europe, thy monarchs now o'er thee would sway 
Had sceptred Justice ruled without a blot ! 
No loyal love can live where truth and right are not. 

Thou too, Napoleon, left on France a scar ! 
Yon arch triumphal, and that golden dome 
Above thy dust witness thy glory's star 
Eclipsing e'en the splendors of old Eome. 
Borne o'er the sea by love to France thy home, 
Sorrow leaves not her dews where thou dost sleep. 
Hard as thy prison-rock where billows foam 
O'er slaughter'd millions thou couldst never weep ; 
And hence around thy tomb men tearless vigils keep. 

Learn wisdom, France, from pangs 'mid blood and flame ! 
Be thy Eepublic true to Freedom's cause, 
Nor Liberty in thee a boastful name ! 
Guard human rights by just and equal laws, 
Nor in the path to Truth Eternal pause ! 
Oh, hurl no creed in malice from thy soil ! 
By revolution snatch'd from tyrant's jaws, 
Like evil kings, make men no more thy spoil, 
Nor fling from thee a boon won by long tears and toil ! 



8 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

Then Europe, yea and Earth, will know the time 
When men from royal fetters shall be free. 
Hark, from the future peals that hour sublime 
To tell that rule from worth, not birth, shall be ! 
Then o'er our world thy smile, Liberty, 
Shall wake in nations powers that slumber'd long, 
Because the many toil'd, unblest by thee, 
To keep the few impurpled in their wrong 
Till realms in chains and tears could voice no joy in song. 

Great are the people who have made thee great, 
And, Paris, beautiful as earth's bright dream ! 
The Old and New in thee now meet and mate 
Until we see from them commingling teem 
Such births of loveliness that they do seem 
Outflashings from the brilliant sun of France ; 
And then o'er thee my heart a light will stream 
Like mists of gold when morn in her advance 
Veils in a pensive cloud the beams of day's first glance. 

Queen of the world, why, Paris, thou so dear ? 
Why on mine eyes this mist at thought of thee ? 
Oft will thy name bring from my lid a tear. 
An iceberg's glitter o'er a sparkling sea 
They say is like thy bright frivolity. 
So cold, so gay, can tenderness have room ? 
Yes ! Love and Death make Paris dear to me. 
Affection's glow, like evening's on a tomb, 
Will gild its clods with light, and sacred make its gloom. 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 9 

Napoleon's urn, the Palais Koyal's flowers > 

The spoils of glory which the Louvre displays, 
• Old Notre-Dame with gray, majestic towers, 

And Concord's Place where Beauty lingering stays 

To veil the glare from revolution's blaze, 

The Champs Elyse'es, and the battle-pile 

Whose arch of triumph mocks Pome's grandest days ; 

The magic Bois whose charms dull hours beguile, 
These, Ida, seen by thee, were hallowed in thy smile ! 

What shadow flings its darkness o'er the sea 
' To spread a midnight o'er my trembling heart ? 

Ida, was this a mystic spell from thee 

While waves and winds of ocean us still part ? 

Prophetic was the tear which oft would start ? 

The sun shone dim as if he felt a woe. 

Behind these clouds does Death now point his dart ? 

My spirit shiver'd ere it felt the blow : 
The evil that I fear'd in agony I know. 

Love, how swift thy flashing pinions fly 
To bear me o'er the mountains of the deep ! 
France, have I come beneath thy sunny sky 
To veil my life in clouds that ever weep ? 

1 see thee, Ida, sleep ! hope is in sleep. 
A whisper in her heart unseals her eye : 
E'en in her dreams did Love his vigil keep. 
A glance, a bound, a low and tender cry ! 

What grief and joy may thrill where mingle smile and sigh ! 



10 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

Poor human strength and beauty, what are ye ? 
Bright flow'r of womanhood, how frail thy stem ! 
What ghosts of shadows pale from life we flee ! 
Each mortal casket breaks before a gem 
Immortal flashes from its diadem. 
Oh, ere the spirit bursts to life away, 
Ever must pains and clouds around it hem ? 
Alone through night and death can shine the ray 
That points up to the sun in everlasting day. 

When battle-trumpets breathe their martial fire, 
And armies watch the deeds of false and brave, 
'T is pride and shame oft coward-hearts inspire. 
Where tempests fiercest lift the mountain wave, 
And lightnings show each gulf a yawning grave, 
Oft cravens borrow, courage from despair, 
And in wild lunacy will reckless rave. 
Lone suffering months I saw my Ida dare 
Omnipotent in One who pangs for all did bear. 

When I took Ida to the cokTdark sea 
Winter laid France white in a shroud of snow. 
I tread the deck in lonely agony 
While Death sits on the comn'd form below ; 
Clouds o'er the deep funereal shadows throw. 
Oh, who can paint the pang of sunless days 
When life is gloom and hope has lost its glow ? 
But see ! my country's shores rise on my gaze ! 
O'er thee, dear land, a mist which is the tear's dim haze ! 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 11 

Yet winter ling'ring rules the western air 
When cold in earth we Ida laid to sleep. 
Years pass'd in patient pain or wild despair 
As lone as that last tear which Woe can weep 
Ere Sorrow turns to ice the soul's great deep. 
Stars saw me on her grave one summer night 
Where Grief till morn did voiceless vigil keep. 
Out o'er the ocean gates Day flash'd his light 
And blue of sky and sea made glittering sails more white. 

Sweet on the air was breathing fragrant June 
And tempting to her bloom the murmuring bee. 
Until the silence in the blaze of noon 
On Ida's grave I slept beneath a tree 
Whose leaves arch'd o'er my whispering canopy. 
Proud as a queen waved near my head a rose, 
And blossoms round my dreamy eyes could see, 
While high the sun in monarch splendor glows, 
Nor robing round his throne one cloud a shadow throws. 

Lo, now a glory comes down on my dream ! 
It was of rainbows form'd and fringed with gold, 
And e'en the sun grew dull in its bright gleam, 
And far within I saw a form unfold 
Brilliant as visions ere the morn is old. 
The cloud stands over me, and then I know 
Who smiles within the dazzle I behold. 
My Ida sphered in that celestial glow 
The bloom of Life has left for me her love to show. 



12 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

Up from the pillow of the grave I rise 
With outstretch'd arms to clasp my Ida round, 
When o'er her face a smile seraphic flies 
And from her lips a low angelic sound : 
" Ivan," she said, " between us is a bound 
Love may not pass while in the flesh you stay. 
Enrobed in light my way to earth I 've found, 
Not for affection's thrills in mortal clay — 
Thy pilgrim feet I guide to Life's eternal day. 

" Imparadised, the woman 's yet in me. 
I from thy lips must know before we start 
If quenchless in thy breast love burns in thee. 
Has death obscured my image in thine heart ? 
Or in that realm am I left but a part ? 
Another thine would drive me from thy side. 
My youth's first flame I feel within me dart ; 
Since deathless was the love you vow'd youfr bride, 
Your wife eternal I must be or not your guide." # 

" Ida," I said, " my witness is not far ; 
My pillow'd head is wet now with the dew 
That glitter'd in the glory of the star 
O'er me which watch'd while I slept over you. 
'T was Ida to this grave her Ivan drew. 
No lip save thine my lip could ever kiss, 
No love save thine e'er in this bosom grew, 
No smile save thine in Paradise my bliss — 
A void eternal here if thee from Life I miss." 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 13 

"Enough," she said, "a pilgrim thou shalt be; 
The touch of ev'ry soil thy foot shall feel ; 
Thine angel, I, invisible to thee, 
Will oft in dreams thy mortal sight unseal, 
And to thy soul eternity reveal. 
Ivan how oft the universal pain 
Has felt within his widow'd spirit steal, 
Until he sought to hush its cry in vain 
With joys that flash and fade like sparkles on the main ! 

" In man there is a deep time cannot fill ; 
A throb in eyes for charms they never see ; 
In ears an ache for strains that may not thrill ; 
A sigh in hearts for something yet to be 
As long and vast as their eternity. 
Time mocks the dream it never can destroy, 
And ye the visions chase fast as they flee, 
Which yet lure on to where with no alloy 
Shines that immortal state in which to live is joy. 

" Genius on earth consumes with secret fire, 
And Beauty's Image grasping seeks in vain ; 
The phantom near'd more quenchless makes desire, 
But always miss'd, awakes intenser pain. 
The sculptured marble which his wreath doth gain 
Yet leaves a hunger in the artist's breast, 
And magic pictures which o'er ages reign 
The painter lured to dreams which gave no rest, 
Till Art triumphant most is ever most unblest. 



14 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

" In time each good possess'd has yet a sting, 
And soaring wishes wakes beyond its spell. 
Give Fancy Earth ! It will with bolder wing 
Scorn the mean gift and mount in Heav'n to dwell. 
The poet's genius is the poet's hell. 
Imagination tortures thus in man, 
And wings to pangs its songs may never tell. 
Each mortal yet untaught will dream and plan, 
And age the vision chase which youth in morn began. 

" Murder consuming in an evil heart 
Glares over death, and like volcanic fire, 
Uncheck'd on earth beyond the grave will start, 
Though impotent the fury of an ire 
Where spirits agonize, yet can't expire. 
Each guilty soul in Hades as in Time 
A wretch with passion toss'd, whose mad desire 
Burns ever, while impossible his crime — 
What Death finds man he is with equity sublime. 

" On all life's clouds I see this Death now grin ! 
He scowls o'er homes, and round the loved doth leer, 
And tells the flesh by pains he mines within. 
Each heart the hungry phantom rules with fear, 
And o'er a world triumphant waves his spear. 
Oh, who may tell the sighs about each grave, 
The anguish piercing in each burning tear ! 
Yes, vain would man death's ghastly terrors brave — 
From such grim tyrant-sway Omnipotence must save. 



VISIONS OF SOLTMA. 15 

" Solyma, in Thee is man's Ideal found ! 
'Mid shapes of beauty flashing on the sight 
Where Music breathes her soul in every sound, 
Fancy her wing folds in thy glory's light, 
Poised, and at rest on the Creation's height. 
Sublimed, each sense has that for which it pined 
In hopeless ache 'mid time's old curse and blight, 
And with a bliss, ethereal and refined, 
A universe attuned, immortal thrills the mind." 

She ceased, and on a hill a City shone 
Bathed in a beauty of celestial light ; 
Not dull with tarnish'd, time-decaying stone, 
Its gems and gold were flashing on my sight 
The beams of Him whose face dispels the night. 
Fair Solyma I saw, Creation's Queen, 
More dazzling than the sun when noon is bright, 
And by a dim and mortal vision seen 
'T will blind and burn the eye with its resplendent sheen. 

Around, each storm was hush'd, nor roar'd one sea, 
And smiled above the blue eternal skies, 
While all from pain and death forever free 
Had look more sweet than that of Paradise. 
Music mine ear and Beauty thrills mine eyes, 
And forms of grace shine in celestial glow. 
No tear-drop trembles there, nor lip breathes sighs, 
But in each heart Love whispers soft and low — 
Yes ! Solyma, in Thee man's joy will ever grow ! 



16 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

Hast thou look'd on the Alps while yet the Spring 
Left on their sides the white long-lingering snow 
As down some mountain gorge the sun did fling 
In floods the splendors of his evening glow ? 
See ! steeps and peaks to walls and turrets grow ! 
A glittering city floating seems in air 
And angels in its light to come and go, 
Until a cloud veils o'er the pageant rare 
Where symbols on the skies immortal things declare. 

Yes ! thus 'mid time, in image veil'd and dim, 
Would musing men on Alpine heights behold, 

Solyma, a dazzling vision swim 

Of thy gem-flashing walls and streets of gold 
To be remember'd when thy charms unfold ; 
And yet how poor at eve that mountain-sight 
Beside the glories to my eye unroll'd 
As Beauty smiles in Solyma the bright 
And on the city pours her everlasting light ! 

Now in my dream I all things saw made new. 
The same yet not the same did earth appear, 
Then glowing like the sun her glory grew, 
And in her light my soul more large and clear. 

1 felt my body with a wond'ring fear 
Chang'd to its spirit form and yet mine own. 
I was an essence in a loftier sphere 

Flashing around the splendors which there shone 
Where things terrestrial lost are in celestial known. 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 17 

Mine eye reach'd far with sights of beauty fill'd ; 
Mine ear drank now the sounds for which it yearn'd ; 
Each nerve intense was with a rapture thrill'd 
Till in its joy my being glow'd and burn'd. 
What once took years was in quick moments learn'd. 
With glance dilate and wide as time and space 
To my Ideal Manhood I was turn'd — 
Yet made angelic in my form and face — 
My mortal beauty robed with an immortal grace. 

Supreme the joy when thine Perfection's dream ! 
Thy soul and flesh made all that they can be ! 
Swiftness and power and glory's crowning gleam, 
And grace beyond the poet's eye to see, 
Or artist catch when genius glances free ! 
Sublimed at last to all e'er sigh'd for man ! 
Thy bliss a thrill for an eternity 
To seal Jehovah's everlasting plan 
Which ere Creation's morn in His great thought began ! 

Where Ida gazed I saw within the gate 
Whose pearl was turning on its hinge of gold 
A shining one time could not emulate, 
Yet like myself a man of human mould 
Transfused with light till dazzling to behold, 
Such, that the splendors which around him blaze 
Beam from within, and as they still unfold, 
Upon his brow a diadem of rays 
Crowns one who shines the type of blest eternal days. 

2 



18 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

Not o'er our earth on faces sits repose ; 
Impatience clouds, or flashes from the eye, 
And o'er each feature fitful changes throws. 
E'en when the man is throned in dignity 
A pain along his tortured nerves will fly 
To show the worm amid the monarch's pride. 
Not in a world where death his work may ply 
Can peace in human hearts or looks preside 
To breathe eternal calm o'er time's unrestful tide. 

In that celestial form I saw a soul 
Fixed in its God, and to its centre true. 
If once around a storm was heard to roll 
All now was still as heaven's sublimest blue 
Where sings the lark unheard and hid from view. . 
The victor in life's war, and ceased its roar, 
Immortal hence his crown he conscious knew 
Where change can come not, nor a whirlwind more 
Dash out its envious rage upon the waveless shore. 

He smiled and looked as I have seen^the day 
When burst the young sun from his golden shroud 
To send down on the world a flashing ray 
Which, tinting morning on her crimson cloud, 
Awaked the tuneful birds to warble loud ; 
As if the King of Heav'n, o'erbrimm'd with joy, 
Darted his beams amid the feathery crowd 
To thus benign their piping throats employ, 
And one glad chorus raise without earth's sad alloy. 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 19 

But now loud music burst out on mine ear, 
As I have heard in some cathedral hymn, 
And myriad shapes of beauty bright appear 
Where Heaven breathes o'er its grace in face and limb 
Conforming to the perfect mould of Him 
From whom our Manhood finds and takes it all, 
And from whose Godhead's glory to the rim 
Of his Creation rays will robing fall 
In light on all things fair which we may lovely call 

Where crowns are flashing and the glad wreaths wave, 
I see the glorified in white array'd 
Who sing round Him who saved them from the grave. 
A Hallelujah for his grace display 'd 
Burst from my lips, and when the word was said 
It seem'd a universe roll'd on the sound 
Whose music to Creation's limit stray'd, 
And thrill'd celestial hosts with joy around 
Till not a silent harp nor voiceless lip was found. 



See ! Heaven opens, now behold 
Blazing far bright lamps of gold 

On the crystal sea ! 
From the throne light-circled o'er 
Lightnings flame and thunders roar 
While thy name swells evermore — 

Lamb of Calvary ! 



20 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

Yes ! thou mock'd and crucified, 
Onward flows Salvation's tide 

Over Heaven from Thee ! 
Thrill from Thee its bursts of praise ! 
Smile from Thee its bliss-bright days ! 
Beams from Thee its glory's blaze — 

Lamb of Calvary ! 



Harps of Heav'n assist our song ! 
Saint and seraph roll along 

This great joy with me ! 
Thousand thousand voices sound ! 
Hear Creation's farthest bound ! 
Burst thy praise eternal round — 

Lamb of Calvary ! 



Once in a palace of old Europe's kings 
A marble cherub seem'd through air to fly 
As if Love's fire was breathing in his wings. 
Grasping his torch to fling down from the sky 
A light o'er earth whose hope uncheer'd would die, 
He look'd to me like some celestial smile. 
Grace in each limb and brightness in his eye, 
His floating image could my heart beguile 
When life would else be gloom and its sad stains defile. 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 21 

Lo ! living cherubs in such grace of flight 
By millions cleave the soft cerulean air 
With pinions flashing in eternal light! 
'T is harps not torches those white fingers bear. 
Hark ! floating from their lips flow strains so rare 
That tuneless seem'd all heard before by me. 
Oh, how could earth's best melodies compare 
With music breathed from hearts made pure and free ! 
But from immortal joy immortal song can be. 

" Ida," I said, " yon infant-angels see 
Within whose forms 't is beauty's self inspires, 
And Heaven has touch'd their tongues to melody, 
Enkindling in each breast seraphic fires 
Whose halo crowns, and round with light attires ! 
Some poised on graceful wing, some circling high, 
Some speeding onward with intense desires ! 
What curls of gold upon their foreheads lie, 
Or stream in waving locks as gloriously they fly ! " 

"Ivan," she said, "a seraph leads the band, 
Great Uriel in his morning purple bright, 
And cinctured round with gold from God's own hand, 
In Solyma third hierarch of light 
Who Satan battling hurled to chains in night. 
Blest are our joyful eyes that we behold 
From our dim world yon radiant infant flight ! 
O'er such child-angels oft have cycles rolled 
Ere call'd within the streets that burn and blaze with gold 



22 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

" In paradise, the babes who died on earth 
Live in the light, before Creation's King 
Commands his infants of celestial birth, 
By him refined, to soar on beaming wing 
And in his Solyma his praise to sing. 
Within his Capital all forms are seen 
As Death in youth or age from earth may bring ; 
Yet each himself, nor his resplendent sheen 
Obscures one featured mark that tells who he has been." 

Oft near my home, painted by southern flame, 

O'er field and wood bright tropic birds would glance 

In splendid dyes — by storms o'erborne they came, 

And swift on brilliant wings was their advance 

When turn'd toward climes where warmer sunbeams 

dance. 
Once I beheld two fly behind the rest 
With colors gay as visions of a trance : 
The torrid plumage flashing on each breast 
For lands with glowing suns their eager flight confess'd. 

So thus two cherubs leave their shining band 
To circle o'er our heads in airy flight, 
And smile and sing and kiss to us the hand, 
Quivering their fragrant wings with their delight 
Till Heaven seem'd shaping beauty for our sight. 
Then with a»farewell look and sign they fly 
To join the host cherubic, fleet and bright ; 
And as those infant forms fade in the sky 
I felt a mystic tear stand trembling in mine eye. 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 23 

Turning I saw beam o'er my Ida's face 
The glory of maternal smiles whose glow 
Kindled her being to celestial grace. 
" Our babes ! " she cried, " our babes we laid below 
The summer sunlight and the winter snow 
To wait the trump of the eternal morn ! 
My Ivan, see, in Solyma they go 
To serve the King for whom they blest were born, 
And sunlike round his throne with cherubim adorn ! " 

I look aloft ! the universe outstreams 
Its dazzling glories o'er the trembling skies, 
And sends its angels robed in splendid beams 
To sing the wonders which on time arise. 
On pinion swift with joy each seraph flies 
Speeding through Cygnus and the Milky Way ; 
Oriou, pleased, hears their loud triumph-cries, 
And Aldebaran with his mystic ray, 
As onward flash the hosts to Solyma's bright day. 

Leaving the worlds they guard for worship now 
Cherubic armies and the saintly throng 
With everlasting glory on each brow 
O'er the creation pour in light along 
To bend before the throne and wake the song. 
Glance Michael, Eaphael, Gabriel o'er mine eye, 
And angel-patriarchs to whom belong 
The amplest honors of the ancient sky 
On wings majestic toward the beaming city fly. 



24 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

Within thee, Solyma, I hear them sing, 
And see disclosed amid thy clouds of light 
In my own manhood's form Creation's King 
Enrobed effulgent in his Godhead's might 
Shining through tears of love that dim my sight 
Immortal burns the flame while I adore ! 
His human body throned divinely bright ! 
Oh, I with Ida up to Him must soar 
And sing within His light and leave Him nevermore ! 



Majestic Father ! Thee we praise, 
O'er all, Paternal Godhead, Thou ! 
While cherubim with glory blaze 
We lowly bow. 
Our Father, we adore 
Thee from Thyself alone ! 
Invisible forevermore, 

And yet our own ! 

Almighty Son ! 't is Thee we see 
In One, Thou Human and Divine ! 
The Father's image beams in Thee : 
His glory Thine. 
Creator, Thee we praise ! 
Eedeemer, Thee we love ! 
Our God made Flesh on Thee we gaze 
In light above ! 



VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 25 

Eternal Spirit, Thee we bless, 
Forever, Thou Proceeding One ! 
And from the Father Thee confess, 
And from the Son ! 
Breath of Life and Love ! 
O God by whom we sing ! 
In Heav'n our rest, Thou Holy Dove, 
Beneath Thy wing ! 

Glory to Father and to Son, 
And to the Spirit ever be ! 
The Everlasting Three in One, 
And One in Three ! 
Jehovah, each we sing ! 
Jehovah, all adore ! 
And to our God Triune will bring 
Praise Evermore. 



Sometimes when Evening sets her golden star 
In the blue bosom of an Alpine lake, 
From a dim mountain-cliff, heard high and far, 
A musing shepherd's song will softly break, 
And^-all the echoes of the rocks awake. 
Lip answers lip and sound replies to sound, 
And as new breasts new inspirations take 
That twilight-music swells and spreads around 
Until from peak to peak the melodies rebound. 



26 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 

Thus, Solyina, from thy resplendent hill 
One angel-strain rose floating through the air ; 
One angel-lip soon quiver'd to the thrill, 
But that a flame of glory kindled there, 
And mingling millions in the joy did share. 
Hark ! Hallelujahs ring from height to height 
As cherubim to seraphim declare 
A bliss that burns through all the worlds of light 
Till one celestial song a universe made bright. 

Waked by those strains my resting head I found 
Still pillow'd on the grass of Ida's grave : 
A bird was warbling with a tuneful sound, 
And low a murmuring stream its music gave. 
Across my face a cypress-branch did wave : 
As twilight dropp'd its dews in deeper gloom 
His sculptured form I saw who came to save : 
'T was thus my dreams were led up to the bloom 
Where Life immortal lives in Him who spoil'd the tomb. 



FAITH. 



WHAT curious bosom never throbb'd to roll 
Mysterious darkness from the burden'd soul ? 
Who would not tear his being's veil away, 
And burst to light in truth's eternal day ? 
Oh, who glows not with burning wish to find 
Where tend these restless energies of mind — 
Where point these mystic longings and desires 
That hide in every breast their wasting fires ? 

Faith lifts each cloud, the void of life supplies, 
Sheds light o'er earth, and leads us to the skies. 

What secret power, with universal force, 
Can atoms join, and worlds keep in their course ? 
True as the spell that points to Heav'n a soul 
What makes the needle tremble to the pole — 
Beams in the twilight star with golden ray, 
And flashing from the sun sheds round the day ? 
Or tell, what power invisible can bind 
Insentient matter to immortal mind ? 
Lo, Science points where, quivering on the sky, 
With vivid joy the frantic lightnings fly, 
And finds through worlds electric forces reign 
That bind creation in one mystic chain. 



28 FAITH. 

Thus in the spirit-realm with sovereign sway 
Faith rules and calls its energies in play — 
O'er all the unseen empire has control, 
Explains, pervades, and regulates the whole. 

Turn where we may, the curious eye surveys 
Through the wide circles of the social maze — 
From the lone hut where squalid misery pines 
To where in pride the splendid palace shines, 
From the drear isle where rude barbarians dwell 
To lands where Science breathes her magic spell, — 
Each human link in the vast living round 
To the whole chain by Heaven's own wisdom bound, 
Till trust in others from our infant breath 
Through all life's sorrows to the shades of death, 
Joins man to man, forms ties of sacred love, 
And points us to eternal worlds above. 

Faith, too, in self, when obstacles oppose, 
Which in the breast of modest genius glows, 
Alone can fire the daring soul for flight 
Beyond the clouds that veil the fields of light. 
Let dark Distrust enjoy her shadowy reign, 
Let fears of failure haunt the troubled brain, 
The arm will lose its force, the mind its fire, 
And every lofty scheme in night expire. 
When Danger scowls, when Penury's chill frown 
Palsies the heart and weighs the spirit down, 
When withering scorn, the jeer of silly mirth 
Would drag the bold adventurer back to earth, 



FAITH. 29 

O'er doubts triumphant and unmoved by sneers 
His lifted eye will brighten 'mid its tears. 
And on Faith's wing exulting he will rise 
To drop his prophet-mantle from the skies. 

Behold Columbus spread his venturous sail 
Where mountain billows sweep before the gale! 
Ye lightnings, clouds, and tempests, all in vain 
Ye flash and frown and roar along the main ! 
Let earth and sea and sky mix in the strife, 
Let murder plot and grasp the secret knife, 
Serene the hero's soul, erect his form, 
Through the wild ragings of the midnight storm. 
While gathering perils dark around him spread, 
Faith sheds her awful brightness on his head ; 
" Onward ! " he cries ; God smiles upon the brave : 
No tempests more can toss the sleeping wave, 
And soon with raptured glance his eyes explore 
The misty outlines of the promised shore. 

Celestial Faith ! thy guardian hand appears 
And points great Newton to yon wheeling spheres ; 
A halo binds around his brow serene 
As he surveys the glittering starry scene, 
Darts his keen eye through the wide realms of space, 
And takes creation in his mind's embrace. 

Amid the battle-cloud, as freemen fight, 
I see thy hovering form crown'd with the light. 



30 FAITH. 

While Britain's lion glaring crouches low, 

And footprints mark with blood the shining snow ; 

While low-brow'd Treason hides with specious smiles 

A soul which gold has bought, and plans his wiles ; 

While Disaffection murmurs through the land, 

Chills Freedom's heart and weakens Freedom's hand ; 

While patriots groan, while shrieking Hope takes flight, 

To leave the world in an eternal night, 

From Heav'n I hear thy glad inspiring cry — 

" Fight on, ye brave ! your cause shall never die ! " 

From thy bright realms I see thee bring relief, 

And seek on wings of love our matchless chief ; 

Smile through the storm, and bid him stand unawed, 

And trust his country to his country's God. 

Illustrious Hope ! with brighten'd glance mine eyes 
Thy glittering pinions see wave on the skies ; 
Soon radiant stands thy graceful image where 
Yon son of genius sinks into despair ; 
'T is thine, indeed, to bid the shades depart 
That cloud his brow and agonize his heart : 
'T is thine with glowing pictures to inflame 
Immortal ardors for the wreath of Fame ; 
'Tis thine the Future's curtain to unroll, 
And stream its glories o'er the hero's soul ; 
But soon thy colors fade, thy visions fly, 
Like painted vapors when a breeze may sigh, 
Unless, with loftier eye and nobler mien, 
Majestic Faith descends to rule the scene. 



FAITH. 31 

Yes ! thou inspiring Faith, in trial's day, 
When night draws round, and storms burst on our way ; 
When from their depths in rage wild oceans rise, 
And dash their fury up to trembling skies ; 
Thou, Faith, like Him, whose majesty confess'd 
Hush'd by one monarch-word the waves to rest, 
Dost calm our fears, dost turn our raptured sight 
Where tempests never sweep in paths of night. 

Let, blissful Faith, thy magic wand but wave, 
Point through the cross to Him beyond the grave, 
Griefs bloom with joys, bright rainbow-lustres play, 
Despair will smile, and midnight turn to day. 

Fidelio's mansion blush'd once in the dawn, 
Whose morning light glow'd crimson o'er his lawn ; 
Eeligion on his home her glory shed, 
And Art and Learning round their graces spread. 
Shall storms arise ? shall Sorrow shed her tear 
O'er scenes of bliss unclouded by a fear ? 
Lo, slander blasts, the mob a torch applies, 
Above his home flames leap to midnight skies ; 
Fidelio's wife glares with a maniac gaze ; 
Fidelio's children perish in the blaze ; 
About Fidelio, guiltless, clanks a chain, 
And wretches taunt him with red murder's stain. 
" Oh, Heaven," he cries, " with vengeance-burning dart, 
Why dost thou love to pierce and pain my heart ? " 
Lo, while he speaks, see in the glimmering ray 
That through his dungeon-bars finds dim its way, 



32 FAITH. 

A smile is on his face, his features shine 

As round him plays a flood of light divine ! 

Faith looks aloft to One whose eye is there, 

And glory gilds the shadows of despair. 

" Father, smite on ! " Fidelio's lips exclaim ; 

" All shall be known when earth is wrapp'd in flame ; 

Yes ! then thy hand the curtain shall unroll, 

To show why sorrow thus has wrung my soul, 

When peals thy trumpet the eternal morn, 

And with its breath our world to bliss is born, 

There will we meet, immortal in the sky, 

Where Love can drop no tear o'er those who die." 

See, as they part, a mother kiss her boy, 
While sighs delay the word that clouds her joy ! 
She cries, while from her eyes the tears will flow, 
As clasp her arms the form most dear below, 
" My son, when first thy little lip I press'd 
But Heav'n can know the bliss within my breast — 
The joy that thrill'd, the love and mingled pride, 
As stretch'd thy hands above thy cradle's side, 
While o'er thy cheeks bright smiles the roses chase 
Keflected from thy hovering angel's face. 
Laid on the grass I see thine image now, 
And boyhood's curls wave clustering o'er thy brow. 
Oh, trust, my son, since Manhood bids us part, 
And veils with sorrow's shade my widow'd heart, 
Oh, trust, when tempests darken trial's day, 
Thy father's God and mine to guard thy way ! " 



FAITH. 33 

He goes, while filial tears his cheeks suffuse, 
Flush'd with gay hopes, his path of life to choose ; 
And when Temptation spreads her glittering snare, 
When Pleasure smiles to drag him to despair, 
Maternal Faith, his shield in peril's hour, 
Defies a world, and baffles demon-power. 

And when tornadoes burst from angry clouds, 
When lightnings leap across the vessel's shrouds, 
When thunders peal wild answers to the waves, 
And ocean lash'd to madness yawns with graves, 
When Hope forsakes, and agonizing cries 
Above the battling elements arise, 
The wife at home bids storms no longer blow ; 
Her Faith chains down the seas that heave below, 
And spreads the sail, and makes the willing breeze 
Speed him most loved safe over glittering seas. 

Blest child of Faith, whose smile is o'er the skies, 
Eobed in her morn, Love brightens on mine eyes ! 
Wide to the breeze her standard be unfurl'd, 
To wave its peaceful glories o'er our world ! 

What breast the brilliant vision never knew 
That gilds earth's clouds with Hope's inspiring hue ? 
Oh, say, who ne'er the future's veil unroll'd 
To see return again the age of gold ? 
From time's first dawn the varied cycles share 
The same old dream that lifts man from despair, 
Since in his soul th' immortal wish has birth, 
That yearns the glow of Heav'n to find on earth. 

3 



34 FAITH. 

What power omnipotent shall burst our chain, 
And o'er our world shall spread the splendid reign ? 
Can Science with her orient ray dispel 
A gloom that blackens from the shades of hell ? 
Oh ! Eeason, in her wisest laws express'd, 
Is vain to tame the passions of the breast, 
To bind wild nations to her stately car, 
Or wreathe the olive round the sword of war. 
Thou, matchless Faith, thou, wing'd with thine own light, 
Must flash away the clouds that make our night ; 
Thou from despair must give to man release 
Till Love shall spread o'er earth the sway of Peace ! 

But, frowning here, a phantom form appears 
To cast her shadow o'er the future years. 
" Judge from the Past, deluded man," she cries ; 
" Hope's glittering visions but deceive thine eyes ; 
Poor dupe of priests, no promis'd day shall shed 
Millennial brightness on thy suffering head ! " 

Paint Infidelity, in darkest hues, 
Paint from the past thy soul-contracting views ; 
Then in the cheerless colors of the tomb 
Let thy despairing picture frown in gloom, 
While lightning-flashes o'er its blackness dart 
More fierce than hate that burns within thine heart ! 
On mountains mountains pile along the way 
Where Faith points on to a millennial day ! 
Thy art is vain ! no shades at thy command, 
No demon- touches from thy master's hand, 



FAITH. 35 

E'er sketch' d such paths of blood, such seas of fire, 
As Heav'n arrays when prophets sweep her lyre. 

But shall Faith tremble at the dread survey 
And turn aghast her wilder'd eye away — 
To passion's power, to Satan's sway give o'er 
Immortal men, chain'd down forevermore ? 
Nay ! from the skies majestic scenes unfold ; 
Faith sees her angels wave their wings of gold ; 
Then, rank on shining rank, from Heav'n descend, 
And with her wrestling sons in battle blend. 
Above the strife behold her towering form, 
Calm as some sunlit rock amid a storm, 
While in her hand th' Eternal Word appears 
To gild earth's darkness with sabbatic years ; 
And as the scenes of future bliss arise, 
Light crowns her brow and kindles in her eyes ! 

T was thus when morn dispell'd the midnight's tears, 
And glanced in terror on the Syrian spears, 
As gathering foes 'mid yells of clamorous hate 
With axes thunder at the trembling gate, 
The Prophet, smiling, turns aloft his gaze 
Where chariots burn, celestial warriors blaze. 

From Heav'n' s bright hills, Faith sends her clarion- 
cry, 
And angel-forms again are on the sky — 
" Ye Christian soldiers, go — your standard raise 
Till over earth millennial glories blaze ! 



36 FAITH. 

Where stormy winters sweep around the pole, 

And suns unsetting weary circles roll ; 

Where Nature painted in her torrid ray 

Seems gorgeous as the cloud-gates of the day, 

Lift high the Cross ! Let Brahma raise his fanes, 

And Gunga's stream in blood wind through the plains ; 

Let Boodh's dark millions in their temples bend 

Where white-robed priests with mystic rites attend : 

Let Feejee's fires gleam through the midnight air, 

To show the writhing victims of despair : 

Let Moslem vengeance bolts of ruin throw, 

And blood-red crescents o'er Judea glow : 

Let Kome's dark spectre tower amid the gloom, 

Crown' d with her flames, to make for Faith a tomb ; 

Yet, Heaven your shield, ye Christian warriors, go, 

The earth your battle-field and hell your foe ! 

Lift high the Cross, and Science soon will rise 

To hail the Gospel- Angel as he flies, 

And Life's immortal page send from her hand 

Like seed which autumn wings across the land ; 

Shall nations join, and flash along her wire 

Salvation's news, as with celestial fire ! 

Lift high the Cross ! Soon War's death-trump no 

more 
Shall peal its battle-notes from shore to shore : 
No chain shall clank, no superstitions throw 
Grim, spectral shadows o'er a world of woe ! 
Lift high the Cross, till Truth shall scatter night, 
And Love's bright morn shed universal light — 



FAITH. 37 

From clime to clime one wide effulgence stream, 
And Heav'n and Earth commingle in her beam ! 



Hero of Heav'n, the Cross whose matchless grace 
Did conquer thee, can move and mould a race ! 
Speak from thy skies ! When tortured Ava's chain, 
When torrid suns pour'd fire upon thy brain, 
When sadly came upon the scorching gale, 
With prison-curses mix'd thine infant's wail ; 
When prostrate she, thine angel — more, thy vnfe — 
From pagan bounty held her guardian life, 
Oh, then, by demons mock'd, by man oppress' d, 
Tell me, could Love still reign within thy breast ? 
When, burst thy fetters, softest breezes now 
Expand thy sail and play upon thy brow, 
Beneath the moon waft o'er a placid stream 
From scenes that frown like phantoms of a dream, 
Shall Love still bind thee to that cruel shore ? 
For men who sought thy blood wilt thou care more ? 
Or weeping lone amid the Hopia shade 
Where all that made earth bright for thee is laid, 
Still wilt thou kneel, and pray for Burmah there ? 
Still shall Love triumph in thy dark despair ? 
Lo ! frowns Helena o'er the sullen wave, 
And Sorrow's tear drops on another grave ; 
Still shall thy sobbing voice the cry repeat ? 
Still shall thy heart with love's pulsations beat ? 
Still shall thy lingering eye look o'er the sea ? 
Still burns the wish that Burmah shall be free ? 



38 FAITH. 

Let gold allure, let Satan in thy way 
His mountains pile on Burmah's path to-day, 
In Burmah's tongue th' Eternal Word must fly : 
On Burmah's soil thy sleeping dust would lie ! 
Oh, victor thou, on some celestial height 
Where play the splendors of immortal light, 
As down to earth thy longing eyes explore, 
They yet shall see Love reign on Burmah's shore : 
On Ava's turrets yet the Cross shall rise, 
And Burmah peal her anthems to the skies ! 

All-conquering Faith ! thy hand has tamed the wave, 
Has snatch'd from death, and burst the awful grave : 
Thy word has calm'd the tempest's boisterous force, 
And stopp'd the sun in his eternal course ; 
Nay ! moved the arm that guides with boundless might 
This vast creation in its onward flight ; 
And thou must rule with matchless power and art 
The warring passions of a human heart ; 
Yes ! thy omnipotence alone can bind 
The waves and tempests of a deathless mind ! 

The great Napoleon on his weary rock — 
Hush'd now the victor's shout and battle-shock — 
A captive now amid the sea confined, 
No schemes of conquest darkening now his mind, 
As meditation o'er life's evening threw 
A wisdom mad ambition's noon ne'er knew, 
While down through vistas in the clouds of time 
Eternal rays gild o'er the scene sublime — 



FAITH. 39 

Napoleon saw that Force with tyrant sway, 
Might briefly make reluctant man obey, 
But only Love's omnipotent control 
CoulcLfound enduring empire in the soul. 

Offspring of Faith, bright Love, descend and bring 
A world in tears to kneel before her King ! 
By his blest sceptre touch'd, thou shalt arise, 
And fling thy conquering banner to the skies. 

Far-glancing Faith ! let Science from her throne 
Unveil earth's wonders round from zone to zone ; 
On tireless pinions bear the spirit far 
To circle space and visit every star : 
Let venturous Fancy sweep on bolder wing, 
Beyond where reason soars, or angels sing — 
All theirs is thine — but wider thy embrace. 
Yon glittering worlds shall weary in their race, 
This earth shall burn, the skies shall melt away, 
And o'er creation Buin's flames shall play, 
Yet from the wreck of fire thy glance descries 
New systems spring, immortal glories rise ! 



COECILIA. 



TH' eternal city burns in evening light ! 
See on the Pincian play its tremulous beams 
That gild the Capitol's majestic height, 
And Coliseum flood with living streams ! 
Each pillar'd temple bathed in glory seems, 
And whitest marbles turn to sudden gold. 
Eound god and hero day's last brilliance gleams 
While wave on wave the d}dng splendors roll'd, 
Eome shines like sunlit clouds, most dazzling to behold. 



The curtains of the night fall round, how soon ! 
The evening star is o'er the Pantheon seen, 
And Caesar's palace silvers in the moon, 
Whose radiance trembling in its yellow sheen 
On garden-statues rests and groves of green ; 
Bright Heav'n is mirror'd now in Tiber's wave, 
And tranquil grows the solemn moonlit scene ; 
In silent shadows mute the branches wave, 
And lo, the stillness makes the city seem a grave ! 



CCECILIA. 41 

Hark ! laugh and jest now through the windows fly ! 
And merry songs peal down the quiet street, 
And lute and harp unite their melody 
For wall and arch their echoes to repeat. 
See, waving lights in fiery circles meet, 
Torch flashing after torch its wildering glare, 
And curious crowds a wedding party greet, 
While as they pass along 'mid shout and stare 
Bright flames to Heav'n send up the joy that kindles there ! 

How dance upon the Bride quick-quivering rays ! 
Gem-clasp'd, around her form a veil of white, 
With purple fringe, floats in the blaze, 
And jewels, catching splendors from the light, 
Like sparkling stars shine on the gloom of night ; 
Her snowy hands a useful distaff hold, 
And smile and eye and grace inspire delight — 
Ccecilia's beauty not from art, nor gold ; 
A thought from Heav'n she moves, shaped in an earthly 
mould. 

She looks as I have seen a queenly rose, 
Blushing not yet in its maturest bloom, 
When in the summer morn it waves and glows, 
Or in the brilliance from some festive room, 
That through the night doth tremble into gloom. 
More sweet the fragrant promise of its leaves 
Than riper glories which are near their tomb. 
How nameless is the charm that fancy weaves 
When simple girlhood's breast first with the woman heaves ! 



42 CCECIL1A. 

Moves by Coecilia's side Valerian's form 
From which a toga's graceful folds depend ; 
He seems a youthful tree that braves the storm 
On mountains, when the thunderbolts descend 
'Mid lightning-flames, and crashing, scathe and rend. 
The blood of Pompey fills Coecilia's veins ; 
Valerian's eyes fierce Julian flashes send ; 
Eome hears exulting their glad marriage strains, 
And Hope smiles 'mid the gloom which o'er an empire reigns. 

Before Valerian's home at last they stand, 
Where clustering flowers hang mingling scents and hues. 
What odorous beauty there doth Love command, 
Shining like leaves bathed in their morning dews ! 
A world, indeed, is blushing round profuse, 
And glows more brightly as the flames advance. 
The bloom of each gay clime the eye may choose ; 
Or smiling sweetly in the moon's cold glance, 
Or lifted by a breeze the torch-lit leaves do dance. 

Not only, Eome, thine eagles from a world 
Did bring the vase, and coin, and flashing gem ; 
Not only did thy banner high unfurl'd 
Wave over plunder'd throne and diadem ; 
Not only did thy legions kingdoms hem, 
And bear to thee their spoil from every side ; 
Not only temples did thy lust condemn, 
But pilfer' d flowers did e'en thy ravage chide, 
Pluck'd forth from every land to deck thy festive pride ! 



CCECILIA. 43 

The Bride stops trembling at Valerian's door ; 
Sweet modesty sits blushing in her face ; 
The husband draws with gentle force before, 
Charm'd with Ccecilia's scarce-resisting grace. 
In her new home the wife soon finds a place 
That makes the timid girl a matron now ; 
With joy friends clasp her in their warm embrace 
Till shakes the flower-crown on her queenly brow, 
While held in her white hands her keys her reign avow. 

Valerian and Ccecilia both receive 
The Faith of Him who, slain, is yet divine ; 
"Nor when they in the Crucified believe, 
Do they to cold austerities incline. 
Love o'er their lives his gentleness did twine : 
True to the cross, the crown their joy inspires ; 
Around their home bright Christian graces shine : 
To others bless, theirs, toil that never tires — 
That earth her King may own, they glow with ceaseless fires. 

Thus from one root two vines spring side by side, 
Lifting their graceful branches wide and high ; 
One strong and stately towers in loftier pride, 
Eound which the other, fairer, seeks the sky, 
And clings more closely when the storm roars by. 
From the same light and dew their scent and bloom ; 
Through kindred veins the same life-currents ply, 
And when Decay has fix'd their fatal doom, 
They intertwining lie on earth, the same sad tomb. 



44 CCECILIA. 

Has ever Faith escaped the bursting storm ? 
Not in the shelter'd vale the sturdiest tree 
Eears into heav'n its tall majestic form. 
Its roots love mountain-rocks, its branches see 
Waving o'er clouds, where lightnings, wild and free, 
Fling round their wrath — the elemental glee 
It courts and dares, while under skies o'ercast 
It grows, and spreads e'en while the tempest thunders 
past! 

Where Christians would elude their murderous foes 
Hid far beneath the fatal stare of day, 
Valerian, taught by his Ccecilia, goes, 
To find the holy rites without delay. 
His splendid toga changed for sober gray, 
Down from a suburb garden he descends ; 
A lamp directs his solitary way, 
Whose glimmering circle to the darkness lends 
A glare, as he along his path in silence wends. 

Grows fainter on his ear the city's sound 
As ocean billows when we leave the shore, 
Or mountain-torrents hurling thunders round, 
In distance mellow their eternal roar. 
The fading hum at last is heard no more : 
There rattles down the noise of hoof and car, 
And bursting through the cavern's open door 
Subdued, a shout is rushing from afar 
Where, laurel-crown'd, 'mid spoils, a victor shows his scar. 



C CECILIA. 45 

That shout the Julian in Valerian woke : 
His breath comes panting, and his heart throbs fast, 
As dreams of glory o'er his vision broke 
Like clouds sun-gilded when a storm has pass'd, 
Whose burning splendors dazzle while they last. 
He could have conquer'd 'neath the eagle's eye, 
And rush'd to fame upon war's tempest-blast : 
He could have heard his name borne to the sky, 
And roll'd along through Eome the triumph proud and high. 

For crowns now chains : for glory now this gloom ; 
Now for the altar-fire the martyr-blaze, 
And for the palace now the catacomb 
Where buried exiles drag out weary days : 
And flames and prisons rush before his gaze 
Till pain-drops burst and bathe his quivering form. 
He stops, he gasps, he kneels, he trusts, he prays ; 
When hush'd to peace the fury of that storm, 
Hope's pulses through youth's veins beat strong, and fast, 
and warm. 

On through the darkness, nor despairing more, 
Valerian farther winds into the night : 
Above, the glare of Eome and thundering roar : 
Beneath, death's empire in his lamp's pale light. 
City of tombs ! where martyrs for the right 
From tyrants were conceal'd deep in the earth ; 
Or scathed by flames, or scarr'd in deadly fight, 
Thy memories nobler of heroic worth 
Than purpled Caesars boast who claim imperial birth ! 



46 C CECILIA. 

Oh, sacred dust, tier rising over tier ! 
With reverent step, Valerian, thou must tread ! 
Here sleeps a father borne on blood-stain'd bier, 
And here his son stung by the asp till dead : 
One sword-pierced here who on th' arena bled, 
While near him coffin'd lies his strangled bride : 
This martyr to a corpse was manacled : 
And babe and mother slumber side by side 
With soldiers of the faith who chain and fire defied. 

Now distant lights glance on Valerian's gaze 
Whose circles throw around a flickering gleam, 
But shine, as he goes on, with larger blaze, 
And sounds grow louder in the brightening beam, 
Which words of worship soon distinctly seem. 
Hark ! mingling voices yet more clear and strong 
Their praises pour, and bursting swell and stream 
High to the roof, then echoing far along, 
Roll through that cavern's night to Heav'n the Christian 
song. 

The people kneel, and their low murmur dies 
As if should cease the solemn roar of seas, 
Or stop the winds, which, sweeping autumn skies, 
Tell yet of stormier blasts to shake the trees. 
Valerian hears, borne on devotion's breeze, 
A prayer, faith-wafted far, in love's soft tone, 
And knows an Eye omniscient watchful sees. 
Oh, safe is he, if world on world be thrown, 
Since e'en 'mid nature's wreck a Father keeps his own. 



C CECILIA. 47 

As parts the crowd Valerian forward goes 
Clothed in baptismal robes of glittering white : 
Peace in his silent heart divinely flows, 
And joy beams shining o'er his trial's night ; 
Around his brow a coronal of light. 
He kneels by sacred drops forever seal'd 
A martyr-soldier in the Christian fight — 
Hope, Truth, and Faith his helm, and sword, and shield — 
Those arms which Heaven bestows for earth's contested field. 

Our duty done, the soul how strong and bright ! 
So shines a mountain in morn's gilding beam 
Lifting its brilliant head calm through the light, 
While 'neath it thunders peal and light'nings gleam, 
And madden'd torrents hear the eagle's scream. 
Oh ! yet, as roar the clouds by tempests whirl'd, 
More beautiful those glittering summits seem 
That tower from gloom where vengeance round is hurl'd, 
And crown'd with sparkling snows, stand monarchs of the 
world. 

When through the city it was spread by fame 
Valerian and his Bride had Christ confess'd, 
Most madly burn'd the universal flame — 
From slave to monarch vengeance in each breast ; 
The temple's priest and suppliant rage express'd — 
He who adorn'd the shrine, and who adored, 
And who the victims sold, or victims bless'd, 
Till through each rank the blaze of malice soar'd, 
And round Rome's pontiff-throne its selfish fury pour'd. 



48 C CECILIA. 

Thus I have seen a flame creep o'er a vale 
And slowly climb along some towering height, 
Wavering, and glimmering, and in sunbeams pale ; 
But fierce and reddening with the storm and night 
It higher flashes, wider and more bright, 
Until it roars, billows on billows hurl'd, 
And burns that mount, a pyramid of light 
Whose top is fire by tempests dash'd and whirl'd, 
While wild destructions blaze to terrify a world. 

Into the Coliseum now is rushing Eome ; 
Behold the mighty pile majestic stand, 
Lifting its wall without a roof or dome 
Above the pygmied crowd, silent and grand ; 
Type of a Power that can a world command, 
Eising to heav'n a monument of gloom, 
Whose shadows darken earth's remotest land ; 
Glowing and pack'd with life, and yet a tomb 
Where nations see their sons dragg'd to a bloody doom. 

The circling crowd, all-madden'd, sways and heaves, 
And whisper'd murmurs swell to stormy cries, 
As I have seen on tapering boughs the leaves 
Quiver and tinkle when the breeze first sighs, 
Which soon, a tempest turn'd, sweeps o'er the skies ; 
Branch shrieks to branch, the tossing forest roars, 
And as the splinter'd fragment whirls and flies, 
Higher and farther yet the fury pours, 
Till bursting to the clouds a whirlwind's tumult soars. 






C CECILIA. 49 

How can a Christian into future woe 
A spirit lost and lone forever send, 
When his own soul, unfetter' d by the blow, 
On wing of light would up to heav'n ascend, 
Soaring where saint and seraph shine and blend ? 
His weapons dash'd to earth, Valerian stands, 
While circling angels round in love do bend, 
And placed across his breast his folded hands, 
That multitude to awe his majesty commands. 

See, from his face immortal lustre streams, 
And on his head a diadem of light ! 
Around his form a dazzling glory beams 
As if an angel stood before our sight, 
Whom Truth had arm'd to battle for the right. 
With weapons poised, three trembling wretches now, 
Before such goodness pale, pause in their fright, 
While grows the brilliance on Valerian's brow 
As Heav'n, with its own crown, approves the martyr's vow. 

The monarch's signs and people's rising rage 
From tier to circling tier, soon break the spell, 
And then, like wild beasts rushing from their cage, 
The gladiators strike with blow and yell 
And fury kindled by a spark of hell. 
Valerian, wounded, staggers o'er the ground, 
Where left in slippery blood a lion fell, 
Then sinking on the beast with gasping sound 
He waves a silver cross in holy triumph round. 

4 



50 C CECILIA. 

As touch'd by evening's ray that Christian sign 
Around the Coliseum gleams and glows, 
With brilliance glittering which appear'd divine, 
And o'er the crowd defiant splendor throws ; 
From rank to rank wild flames of hate arose 
Till never iEtna blazed when earthquakes rend 
Its sides of rock, and down red lava flows, 
And flashing to the clouds its fires ascend, 
Like those indignant tiers where hate and rage do blend. 

Swift through the storm Valerian's spirit goes 
By angels guided into blissful skies, 
And looking downward, smiling, sees its foes, 
And higher mounting faintly hears their cries, 
While they behold his clay with furious eyes. 
A monarch's frown, an empire's rage how small 
To him who, soaring through earth's clouds, descries 
The glittering battlements of heav'n's bright wall, 
And that Eternal King who is the light of all ! 

And while Valerian thus has met his doom, 
Ccecilia sits and views the golden west, 
And reads her death in its fast-gathering gloom. 
In white baptismal robes behold her dress'd ! 
A golden crucifix is on her breast, 
And on her hair a virgin fillet bound 
Whose clasp a wedding diamond shines confess' d. 
Day's lingering lustre o'er her head streams round, 
And floating to her room sweet strains angelic sound. 



CGECILIA. 51 

Chamber and Coliseum share the rage 
Against the Cross, waked by imperial power, 
Which, all-relentless, spares nor sex nor age, 
As storms hurl Alpine trees which high may tower 
To greet the sun, and crush the nestling flower 
That looks aloft with its blue trembling eye, 
Till madly when the roaring heav'ns do lower, 
The bright and scented leaves will whirl and fly 
With limbs of giant pines dash'd o'er the blacken'd sky. 

If torn that flower, if spoil'd its fragrant bloom, 
When darkens over earth the storm's wild wing, 
It is not swept to an eternal tomb ; 
But fierce tornadoes will its seeds far fling 
O'er a wide world, and thus gay beauties bring 
To brighten empires through each distant age ; 
And budding out of death truth thus will spring 
When error's battles sceptred monarchs wage, 
And scatter life-germs round e'en on the tempest's rage. 

Lictor and Lady face to face do stand 
Alone within her chamber's hallow'd space. 
A glittering sword grasp'd in his lifted hand, i 
He strong in arm, and terrible in face ; 
Ccecilia frail, in woman's softest grace ; 
He a low wretch cloth'd with an empire's might ; 
She doom'd, and yet of Pompey's splendid race ; 
He stands a man, now pale with tremulous fright, 
Wliile she an angel smiles in innocence and light. 



52 C (EC ILIA. 

Thrice strikes the Lictor that pure breast of snow 
Heaving beneath its white baptismal fold, 
When, gushing out, the crimson currents flow, 
And to the floor in martyr-drops are rolTd, 
Staining the path of faith to joy untold. 
Ccecilia falls, and^glory round her gleams ; 
Hark ! seraph-music breathes from harps of gold, 
And on her face celestial radiance streams 
Which Christ has flash'd o'er death in bright, immortal 
beams. 

Sailing upon the blue of evening's sky 
Oft I have seen a cloud of spotless white, 
Which stopp'd, with yet no brilliance for the eye, 
But as the sun, his face enlarged and bright, 
Pour'd forth in levell'd floods his parting light 
Into those mists, they take his blaze, and burn 
Till Heav'n seems shining down on mortal sight ; 
And thus o'er dying saints some halo plays 
From that Diviner Orb whence stream eternal rays. 

Ccecilia's spirit softly breathes away 
By seraphs wafted on low warbled strains, 
To float in melodies where endless day 
Its glory flashes o'er celestial plains, 
And never yet have come Time's cares or pains. 
She dies like sound on some iEolian string, 
Whose lingering whisper in the ear remains, 
Fading from earth in faintest murmuring 
As if in heaven to burst, and thrill where angels sing. 



AFRANIUS. 

ACT I. 

Scene I. — Rome. Palace of the Gothic King. 

KING. 

OLD Sibyl, I am glad to see thy face, 
Whose every feature of my Zala speaks, 
And tells the love that breathes to her I love ; 
She more a Eoman seems, and these her skies, 
Than of my blood, and born 'mid Gothic snows. 
How fares my child ? 

SIBYL. 

King, in person, well. 

KING. 

Why then this wildness in thine eye and tone — 
This look that I have seen in summer skies, 
Which, dubious, show a smile, and drop a tear 
While thunders gather in some viewless cloud ? 
The teacher of my child should shed round joy, 
And brighten like a morning of young Spring. 



54 AFRANIUS. 

SIBYL. 
A captive Eoman seam'd by age and care 
Has little heart for laughter, or for love. 
Can the scathed oak, at will, burst into bloom, 
And garland its old limbs with fresh young leaves ? 
Can ice gush into streams when suns are hid ? 
The Alps are rock, yet on the mountain's heart 
One flower moves tears, as its blue eye looks up, 
And pleads with Heaven to keep the tempest back. 

KING. 

Thy words show peril to my daughter near ; 
Speak out thine heart ! 

SIBYL. 

With this once threaten'd tongue ? 

KING. 

Dwell not on that, old nurse, when anger flash'd, 
Sweeping each mein'ry on its tide of fire 
Of service to my child, from life's first bud 
Till womanhood in her glows like a rose. 

SIBYL. 

But why should I to thee a fault unfold 
That will upon a Roman bring down stripes ? 

KING. 

Because — refuse, and I thy lips will force, 
And from them wring the secret of thy soul. 



AFRANIUS. 55 

SIBYL. 
Thy hand a sceptre sways, but sways not me. 
Touch'd by the flame that burn'd in Eome's old days, 
Thy wither'd slave thine empire here defies. 

KING. 

Stay, Sibyl, stay S nor like the sorceress stare, 
Who on our Gothic hills Rome's conquest sang ! 

SIBYL. 

My love for Zala forces me to tell 

What Home's own kings from me could not compel. 

'T is some time since I saw how Julius sigh'd, 

And gazed on her sweet face, and watch'd her form — 

KING. 

But why not this before ? 

SIBYL. 

Thy rage, O King, 
Restrain, and hear me through ! A short hour since, 
By frenzy urged, when glow'd the noontide heat, 
Nor stirr'd a breeze to cool the burning cheek, 
Julius, at Zala's feet, avow'd his love, 
While she, astonish'd, spurn'd the slave away. 

KING. 

And now she asks my vengeance on his head. 
Ho ! Julius ! Julius ! slaves, bring Julius here ! 



56 AFRANIUS. 

SIBYL. 
Nay ! with the eloquence of tears she pleads 
That I his crime should not disclose to thee ; 
But fearing his wild flame I disobey. 

KING. 

What ! will she ask the brazen'd villain's life ? 
Who 'neath our yoke dares such a suit must die. 

Enter Servants with Julius. 

Viper ! thy shining skin did tempt this hand 
To warm thee and be stung — base spider thou, 
Spinning sly toils to snare my Zala's heart ! 



JULIUS. 



Hear me, O King ! 



KING. 

Mean villain, say no more ! 
And didst thou, slave, address my daughter's ear, 
And importune her with the gaze of love ? 
Strip him, and let the rod beat out his life ! 

JULIUS. 

Oh, spare my flesh the scourge ! I pray thee spare ! 

KING. 

When first our Goths possess'd these towers of Eome 
Thy pensive face and eye my fancy won, 
And waked a wish to cultivate thy gifts. 
Before thy mind Home's learning was unroll'd ; 



AFRANIUS. 57 

Thy skilful hand soon touch'd the lute's sweet strings ; 

Thy magic voice stirr'd depths of melody, 

And I, near mine own Zala, then thee placed 

As a companion more e'en than a slave ; 

Yet thou didst dare to whisper thy vile vows. 

Lay hold, and scourge him till his breath be gone ! 

Enter Zala. 
zala. 
Oh, father, spare ! I do beseech thee, spare ! 

KING. 

These Eoman dogs our silly kindness spoils. 
The coming feast which marks that glorious hour 
When our brave Goths first scaled these walls of Eome 
Shall bind with heavier chains the bloated knaves. 

ZALA. 

Oh ! must poor Julius die ! is here no hope — 
No door where Pity may an entrance find, 
And soften down stern Justice into tears ? 
His murd'ress I will ever brand myself, 
And in the midnight toss, and tear my couch, 
Staring to see his pale, reproachful face, 
While through my ear will pierce eternal shrieks 
Till I shall never know the dew of sleep. 

KING. 

Thy tears prevail. Julius, I grant thy life. 
Yet shall thine ear cut off teach with thy blood, 
And thy foul loss, its lesson to our slaves. 



58 AFRAN1US. 

JULIUS. 

King, I pray thee let me rather die ! 

Beat, stab, or burn ; stain with my gushing blood 

The lion's jaws ; sink me with hissing snakes 

Lone in the sea ; in silent dungeons chain 

Me to the corpse whose loathsome touch is death, 

But clip me not, to live a thing of scorn ! 

KING. 

Julius, enough ! thou wilt not change me more. 

[To the attendants. 
Just when the dial points the hour of four, 
And ere the shadow of its finger pass 
One hair- width from the mark, apply the knife ! 



Scene II. — The Pantheon. Sibyl alone. 

SIBYL. 

Immortal gods who cradled infant Eome, 

Then made the world her throne, oh, are ye dead ? 

Majestic Jove, why sleeps thy thunderbolt 

When wretches hurl thine image to the dust ? 

While Juno was dragg'd down to earth by boys, 

Mock'd on our streets, where thy fierce lightnings then ? 

Thy shrines are robb'd, thine oracles are dumb, 

Thy children kneel and cry to emptiness. 

Mail'd Mars, who, flashing, led Eome's eagles on, 

His helmet saw torn from his godlike brow 



AFRANIUS. 59 

And to vile uses turn'd, yet stood mute marble. 

Yea ! she whose Gorgon locks shook hosts with fear, 

Felt, unavenged, the hammer of a slave. 

Thou, crown'd Apollo, image of the sun 

Whose glories beam'd in features most divine, 

Majestic form, the god of light reveal'd, 

Yet shatter'd down by those who hate thy shrines ! 

Diana's bow, her quiver, and her zone 

Ground into dust, and wide o'er Tiber strewn ! 

Sweet Venus, dream of love, we saw thy head 

First batter'd off, then turn'd to ribald jest ! 

Fawns, Dryads, Nymphs, ye bright divinities 

Who smiled o'er earth the winged watch of Heav'n, 

Your pedestals are void, your statues marr'd ; 

Shrines, altars gone, and this domed Pantheon bare 

Before a murder'd Jew they style their god ! 

Ye deities of Rome, come back ! come back ! 

Our gold shall pile, our blood shall smear your shrines, 

And we will lift each image from the dust, 

And temples crowd with your true worshippers ! 



Scene III. — A retired street in Rome. 

LUCIUS. 

Hail, my old friend ! How sober is thy face ! 

VAERO. 

My mood suits my gray hairs ! but thou art fresh 
As this young morning air, bright as the sunshine. 



60 AFRAN1US. 

LUCIUS. 

Yea ! I have heard what brings me back my youth, 
And makes each burning pulse throb with new joy. 

TITANIUS. 

To Lucius, Varro, I have told our scheme ; 
When first he heard he turn'd his face to heaven, 
Then clasp'd my hand until the flesh is black ; 
This aching palm shows still his love for Eome. 

VARRO. 

His clutch more tight yet round the tyrant's throat, 

To leave behind a mark as dark as death ! 

'T is men we want, to go where Battle bares 

His blood-red arm, and on to glory leads. 

Not such be ours who test the crowd by straws, 

Blown on vile breath where Fortune gilded smiles ; 

But those for Rome who fight and peril all 

Where Power enthroned on wrong would drain their blood, 

And kindle round their brows the martyr's flame. 

Such was our Brutus when he Caesar struck 

Whose grandeur spann'd the world, and touch'd the 

heav'ns, — 
A tyrant rending with avenging steel 
Made first by Justice keen. Like Brutus yet 
May our Afranius stab ! 

LUCIUS. 

A man of dreams, 
Who sighs where he should strike, and weakly weeps 



AFRANIUS. 61 

Where he should spill but blood — not words but blows 
Will break Eome's chains, and yet he draws no sword. 

VARRO. 

But in him lurks a soul of fire that stirr'd 
By war to flame will scathe this Gothic herd. 

TITANIUS. 

Nay ! at the font the hero's spark was quench'd ; 
The sprinkling priest has turn'd him to a girl ; 
Before those drops, sat valor on his helm, 
Beam'd from his eye, tower'd in his manly form, 
Outflashing from the circles of his sword 
Till he 'mid battle's earthquake moved like Mars 
When thundering on the gods, and shaking heav'n. 

LUCIUS. 

Yes ! lean as love beneath the moon he steals 
To sit in tears upon some shatter'd shaft, 
Eesting his silent head upon his hand 
To watch the stars, and gaze on vacancy. 

VARRO. 

Ye both mistake — the hero's fire will blaze ; 
A crisis comes — these silken lords of Kome 
Who live in homes fond fathers built for them, 
Spend gold they never earn'd, and cringe to Goths ; 
Burning with lust where they should flame with hate ; 
Naught in themselves, who boast their robes and slaves, 
Dote on the steeds that whirl them to the goal, 



62 AFRAN1US. 

Or vaunt the wretch who wins them crowns with blood/ 
Wantons, whom music lulls in curtain'd beds — 
Who have the shapes of men, and souls of boys, 
And shake to feel the breath e'en of the spring, 
These may by valor win what cowardice lost, 
And learn from stripes in dying manhood's gasp. 
But, angry, Julius comes ! I '11 help his rage. 

Enter Julius. 
Tell me, slave, thy master how this morn ! 

JULIUS. 

Master, thou fool ! A Koman knows no master ! 

LUCIUS. 

Save when the lash shall mark his back with blood, 
And his all-quivering flesh proclaim the slave. 

JULIUS. 

'T was for the King ye ask'd — then curse the King, 

And having done begin and curse again, 

Till curses, hot as hate, shall pierce him through. 

VARRO. 

Oh, bravo, Julius — tell us whence this wrath ! 

TITANIUS. 

The royal tongue has scored for some slight fault, 
Or Zala, peevish, order'd him to stripes 
Which to a hero turn'd her writhing slave. 



AFRANIUS. 63 

JULIUS. 
Your jeers I do deserve, since I, a slave, 
Content to live for those who pamper'd me, 
Have show'd these Goths, more hungry than their wolves, 
Our delicate delights whose organs drink 
The glorious light of these Italian 'skies. 
But that has happen'd which strikes off my chain ; 
Henceforth I live to blast the tyrant's life. 

ALL. 

Farewell, brave Julius, till thy temper cools. 

[Exeunt. 

JULIUS. 

I seem hideous — of my proportion shorn ; 

Each stream will mirror my deformity ; 

The rounded moon each month will tell my loss ; 

The sun's full orb will speak it through each day. 

I '11 feel unfit to dwell 'mid curious beasts ; 

Ashamed to look my fellow in the eyes ; 

Doom'd till my death to hear the scoffs of boys, 

The suppress'd titter of each giddy girl ; 

Clipp'd like some dumb beast to bear abroad 

The mark and badge of him whose slave I am. 

O ear, that thrill'd once with a mother's voice, 

Thy savage sev'rance turns my love to hate, 

My conscience kills, wakes hell that cries for blood. 

Thou, through whose veins Koine's noblest currents flow'd, 

Dragg'd from thy halls down to a Goth's vile breast, 

Smile from thy skies, and hear thine injured son ! 



64 AFRANIUS. 

Since there I knelt where Jove his image lifts 
Majestic as a god, and burn'd to him 
The grain whose smoke roll'd o'er the Capitol, 
My breast, an ocean, has whirl'd round in fire. 
An angel bars the starry gates of light ! 
Apostate from my faith, I read my doom — 
Kevenge my heaven ! Eevenge at last my hell ! 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — A retired place in Borne. 

AFRANIUS. 

My friends, ye do mistake ! 

FIRST GOTH. 

Afranius, nay ! 
We well have weigh'd thy power to gain our suit. 

AFRANIUS. 

T is scarce a month I boast these arms mine own ; 
Nor has the fetter's scar yet left my flesh. 
So late a slave I '11 hurt you more than help. 

SECOND GOTH. 

Thy valor moved the king to set thee free, 
And gratitude will open thee his heart. 

FIRST GOTH. 

Behind the throne one moves the royal hand ; 
Her smile who broke thy chain will aid our cause. 



AFRANIUS. 65 



AFRANIUS. 



That hint would blast me in her father's eyes, 
And hurl me back again to harder bonds. 

SECOND GOTH. 

'T was Sibyl whisper' d that the girl was pleased ; 
Again we pray thee help us in our suit. 

AFRANIUS. 

Calm Prudence tells me I should shun the risk, 
Yet I will dare all peril for my friends. 

BOTH GOTHS. 

Thanks, Afranius, thanks ! long life and thanks ! 

[Exeunt. 

AFRANIUS. 

Most wretched he who lives on smiles of kings ! 

Liberty, thy music midnight storms, 

Thy robes the snow, thy bed the mountain's breast, 
Thy roof the clouds, thy food the peasant's crust, 

1 love thy hills yet more than royal halls 
Where I do cringe in glitt'ring misery. 
Should it be known we at the fountain met, 
Eeneath the moon, to seal eternal vows, 
The eyes of night our starry witnesses, 
My Zala's life would flow out in her blood, 
While I chaiu'd low beneath the Tiber's wave 
Could strike from Eome no bond ! Around is night ! 
Yet Heav'a has form'd us as the sun and moon, 
Which both must shine to bring out earth's best bloom. 



66 AFRAN1US. 

Wild tempests shake my breast and cloud my life ! 
Religion, Love, and Rome are struggling here ! 

Enter Julius. 

Ha ! Julius, how art thou % 

.JULIUS. 

Afranius, ill ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Our country's shadows will fall on the heart. 
Why look'st thou so pale ? 

JULIUS. 

Thou, Afranius, thou, 
Basking in smiles while Romans groan in chains, 
Thou, glittering thus, art steel'd to our mean griefs. 

AFRANIUS. 

Julius, this does me wrong. When flatter' d I, 
When bent a pliant knee, when play'd the knave 
To gain my freedom and the Goth's good will ? 
Have I not blush'd for every Roman's shame ? 
Have I not burn'd for every Roman's wrong ? 

JULIUS. 

Afranius, 't is most true. 

AFRANIUS. 

Why then affirm 
That I on Fortune's honors plume myself, 



AFRANIUS. 67 

And shut my heart to pity and to grief ? 
Be blind these eyes when they refuse a tear ! 

JULIUS. 

Weep not, but strike ! change sighs to manly blows ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Julius, this mystery cease ! explain thy words ! 

JULIUS. 

I will! 

[He pulls aside the hair, which is always worn 
long to conceal his loss. 

AFRANIUS. 

sight most foul and horrible ! 
Say, whence this blood, this sad disfigurement ? 

JULIUS. 

I loved, and on my knees avow'd my love. 

AFRANIUS. 

Loved ! Julius, whom ? 

JULIUS. 

Zala ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Zala ! Zala ! 

JULIUS. 

Ah ! why should anger crimson on thy cheek 
As if the girl had vow'd her heart to thee ? 



68 AFRANIUS. 

AFKANIUS. 

And how did she thy suit receive ? 

JULIUS. 

Keceive ! 
She treated it with sheer, contemptuous scorn, 
Deeming it too presumptuous for belief, 
While Sibyl told the king, who maim'd me thus. 

AFEANIUS. 

I pity thee ! 

JULIUS. 

Pity not me, but Eome ! 
My griefs are naught while pangs tear her dear breast ; 
Each statue of her gods huiTd from its base ; 
Her palaces and temples spoil'd by fire, 
Or given o'er for sport to rev'lling winds ; 
While Sadness sighing sits upon her gates, 
Steals 'mid her streets to hear the biting lash, 
Veils in our homes the smiles of innocence 
That sparkled there to make the fires'de heav'n ; 
And all Eome's mightiness by heroes nursed, 
That panted once to pass this meagre earth, 
And strike the stars, down 'neath the heels of Goths 
Who gaze around like children on a toy, 
Amazed to know from whence their fortune sprang. 
And yet Afranius sleeps, and yet Eome sleeps ! 
Awake ! arouse, and swear with me — revenge ! 

[Exit. 



AFRANIUS. 69 

AFEANIUS. 

Stung with the daughter's scorn and father's wrong, 
He hurls me forward to assuage his hate. 
To slay the Goth at Zala points the sword — 
Perchance with her own blood will stain this hand. 
Vengeance from Heaven should come, and not from me. 
But must the Goth lash Eomans bound with chains ? 
Celestial Pow'rs, dispel this madd'ning doubt ! 



Scene II. — A retired place in a garden. 

ZALA. 

How thick the air ! 

SIBYL. 

To me this hour seems bright 
And pure as heav'n. See how the lingering sun, 
With orb enlarged, hangs on the horizon's verge, 
Fringing with golden hues those western clouds 
While all the sky with crimson blushes round ! 
Oh ! oft on such an eve my fancy spies 
The gods with glancing wings and radiant hair 
Gliding along those beams of slanted light 
From heav'n to earth, and back from earth to heav'n. 

ZALA. 

Sibyl, to me this world is voiceless now ; 
My sorrow veils its beauty o'er with gloom. 
Believest thou dreams ? 



70 A FRAN JUS. 

SIBYL. 
When Sommis, the dull god, 
Shuts iu the eye, he wings the soul, whose glance, 
With Heav'n's own help, looks through the future's mists. 

ZALA. 

But late, when darkness lay upon the world, 

And curtain'd round my couch, while all was still 

Save that low sound, like ocean's roar in shells, 

Night murmurs in the ear, I wildly dream'd 

That I was walking on a toppling cliff 

Around whose base of rocks dash'd foam-white waves, 

When suddenly, seized with a mad desire, 

I threw me headlong from the hideous height, 

And fell as drops an autumn-shooting star, 

Gasping in agony infinite for breath ; 

Out from their sockets stood mine eyes with pain; 

My blood was forced up to my bursting skin, 

Until at last I struck the thund'ring surge, 

And waked up in the ocean's dark abyss. 

SIBYL. 

That wedlock means, unless, defied the Fates, 
My charms shall bring thee from engulfing ills. 

ZALA. 

Thy secret arts are mysteries to me; 

No balm to cure my heart save him I love. 

Enter Afkanius. 
And here he is, with hope for my despair. 



AFRANIUS. 71 

Afranius, save me from rough Jovian's arms ! 
The King would force me wed him most I hate. 
We '11 fly to some lone isle where Winter lives, 
And tempests dash wild oceans on the rocks ; 
Our love will tame the storm, and shine our sun, 
And garland winter with the bloom of spring ; 
The vine shall hang her clusters round the spot, 
And with the dewy sparkle of the morn 
Our songs shall hail the blush upon the hills ; 
And we will soothe day's monarch to the sea 
When twilight brightens with the star of eve. 

AFRANIUS. 

Thy words cut through my heart — but Heav'n knows 

how ! 

ZALA. 

Dost pause ! On a mere slave have I exhaled 

The virgin fragrance of a loving soul ? 

Did I mistake a coward for a man, 

And deck the fawning wretch with passion's hues ? 

Dost spurn me off, the daughter of thy king, 

To wed a beast whose look and touch I loathe ? 

AFRANIUS. 

Oh ! save mine honor, all I have is thine. 
'Tis Eome that calls me thus to crush my heart : 
Nay ! turn each pulsing throb to agony, 
And after death pierce with eternal pain. 



72 AFEANIUS. 

ZALA. 

man, thy love how prudent and how poor ! 

1 conquer fear for thee ; mock death and fate. 
A woman's love knows nothing but itself, 
And him who has evoked its awful power ; 

It leaps the bars of wealth, the grades of rank 
And thrones of kings ; and seas could swim of fire 
To clasp its own, and wing eternity. 
And naught kills woman's love save woman's pride, 
Whose quick o'ermast'ring nature quenches love 
As darkness hides the universal day. 

AFRANIUS. 

Hear me, Zala ! hear, I beg thee, hear ! 

ZALA. 

Not words, but deeds, I want. A man would bear 

Me on his lion breast along a brink 

Of fire where demons yell'd in flames. Farewell ! 

AFRANmS. 

Oh, Zala, stay ! Could I tell all, thyself 
Would laud the deed. 'T is honor spurs me on. 

ZALA. 

Honor ! prate that to fools ! a bubble blown 

From air that dances in the sun to cheat 

Its dupes, whose touch turns back to emptiness. 

[Exit 






AFRANIUS. 73 



AERANIUS. 



Oh ! to be blamed by her who has my heart, 
And call'd a coward slave ! 't is infamy ! 
This is the piercing pang of misplaced love ! 
A Eoman and a Christian wed a G-oth ! 
Too long this love distill'd ambrosial sweets, 
And flush'd my life with dreams, until I 've been 
As one mid ev'ning's music-niurm'ring gales 
That steal in dalliance where soft summers fringe 
A sky-reflecting lake set bright with stars. 
Spirit, that fills with flame the patriot's veins, 
That drew great Cincinnatus from his plough, 
And struck the dagger to Virginia's heart, 
Then breathed o'er Livy's page immortal fire, 
Come from the past, and help my nerveless arm 
Till shines our Eome eternal sun of earth ! 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — A retired street in Rome. 

VARRO. 

My Lucius, hail ! how wrinkled grows thy brow ! 
Sad thou as if this world were dead, and thou 
Didst stay behind its ashes to inurn. 



74 AFRANIUS. 

LUCIUS. 

Eome is the world — and is she not a corpse, 
Graveless and .foul, fed on by beasts, while ghosts 
Shriek round on winds ? 

ANTONIUS. 

And whose but ours the blame 
If Jove, with storms, has roll'd mid roaring flames 
His chariot from her high-domed Capitol ? 
He on Olympus sits to mock her sons, 
Who, pygmies, strut along her marbled halls 
T' amuse the laughing majesty of Heav'n. 

VARRO. 

Be ours the blame that tears extinguish hope ; 
Once shone our Eome the jewel of the world, 
And kings did beg to be her citizens. 

ANTONIUS. 

Then we were men, and fought till empires ranged 
Beneath our sway, and Eome sat on the world, 
Proud as her banner'd bird, who from his crag 
Looks to the sun, the king of earth and sea. 
Oh, now our glory dimm'd and gone our power ! 
No more the Briton from his ocean-isle, 
Chain'd to a swarthy Moor, or Scythian chief, 
Follows the victor's car of glittering gold, 
Piled with the treasures of a plunder'd world, 
And roll'd in triumph to the Capitol ; 






AFRANIUS. 75 

Instead, Eomans in bonds, and lash'd to toil 
Where once their fathers with exulting shouts 
Bursting from windows, walls, and joyous roofs, 
Have rock'd these pillar'd temples to their domes, 
And shook th' eternal arches of the heavens. 

VARRO. 

And would Antonius aid to right our wrongs ? 

ANTONIUS. 

More willing I than serves the hand the head. 

LUCIUS. 

Thanks to the gods ! thy father's fire in thee ! 
Titanius, with swift words unfold our plans. 

TITANIUS. 

Yes ! we whose fathers sway'd the power of Eome, 
Her senates graced, and thunder'd on her fields, 
Have sworn to drive these wolves back to their wilds. 

ANTONIUS. 

Hear I aright ? deceives my heart mine ear ? 
Eesolve will burst our chains ! 't is not in words 
But wills that Freedom lives ! The soul that dares 
The tyrant's power, o'erturns the tyrant's throne. 
Eome, in this one oath I hail thee free ! 

TITANIUS. 

Julius, we mock, and yet 't was he moved first ; 
The drops from his poor ear have fired our plans ; 



76 AFRANIUS. 

By him impell'd, we swore to kill each Goth 

We meet that day whose feast tells Eome her chains. 

Afranius shrank — him Julius yet must swear. 

VARRO. 

He 11 give his hand to break the bonds of Home ; 

The breeze that steals on murmuring wing 

Tq kiss the flower, turn'd storm, will shake the world. 

TITAN ius. 

As coming hither muffled in my cloak, 

Old Sibyl placed this parchment in my hand. 

[ ^eads. 

The Fates have sent the earthquake's shock 
To heave the hill and rend the rock. 
I hear their thunders loud and high ! 
I see their lightnings o'er the sky ! 
Eed comets blaze, and on the West 
Kide warrior-forms for battle dress' d ; 
With flags of blood they rush, they ught 
Till swallow'd up by closing night. 
There on the lonely mountain-side 
Where Satyrs dance, and demons ride, 
The sister Fates amid the gloom 
Shriek to the winds Eome's coming doom ; 
They tell who w 11 the tyrant slay 
And live thereafter but a day, 
That hero brings to Eome her state 
When Glory smiled to make her great 



AFRANIUS. 77 

But if a moment he expires 

Before that day has quench'd its fires, 

Then Eome no more shall gain her might 

Until Italia's sons unite 

A scarlet Priest to hurl from an imperial height. 

ANTONIUS. 

Be mine the hour ! be mine the envied stroke ! 
A tyrant there in kingly mantle sits ; 
There strikes a dagger in a phantom-hand ! 
Bright visions glorious with immortal shapes 
Are smiling round, and voices " onward " cry. 
Fortune, nor death, nor all an empire's might 
Can shake the soul that loves Italia's right ; 
Be gash'd my body till it bleed and die ! 
The patriot lives immortal in the sky. 

Scene II. — A private room in Eome. 

AFRANIUS. 

How sad this hour ! Hast ever lost a friend ? 

JULIUS. 

I had no friend save her who gave me life ; 

Her death made heav'n all cloud, and earth a grave. 

AFRANIUS. 

Soft as the tear it wakes, the name of friend ! 

Eve's whispers not so sweet — hence death more drear. 

The fate of my Antonius hast thou heard ? 



78 AFRANIUS. 

JULIUS. 
He fail'd, I know, to stab the king, and dies. 

AFRANIUS. 

He 's gone — lone-wandering now amid the shades ; 
And yet he follows me, stain'd o'er with blood. 

JULIUS. 

With ghastly look he comes to cry — revenge ! 
But tell me how he breathed away his ghost. 

AFRANIUS. 

To deepen the humility of Eome 

The tyrant made a gladiatorial show ; 

And there high-ranged along the circling seats, 

Piled, tier o'er tier, the Coliseum round, 

These wild Goths saw with Komans Eomans fight, 

Where once our Pompeys and our Caesars sat 

To see their fathers clubb'd, and torn like beasts ; 

Barbarians yell while Eomans fall to die. 

JULIUS. 

Each drop of Eoman blood for vengeance pleads. 

AFRANIUS. 

The worst remains ; my eye grows dim with tears, 
My brain reels round as when a whirlpool boils, 
While the black horror through my mem'ry swims ; 
Antonius, hurling defiance at the crowd, 
And breathing fiery flashes from his face, 



AFRAN1US. 79 

Was dragg'd to view. A Koman stood his foe : 

" Perish the hand," he cried, " that here would strike ! " 

JULIUS. 
How like Antonius that ! What nobleness ! 

AFKANIUS. 

His foe a craven proved : unsheathed his sword, 
And flesh' d a biting wound. In scorn our friend 
The wretch disarm'd, and threw him on the sand. 
Then shook the Coliseum with the cry 
To slip the lion's bars, when, lo ! a beast 
With hunger mad and mane erect, rush'd forth, 
And stood with glaring eyes, in awful pause, 
Till, with a bound, he fasten 'd in our friend 
Ten horrid claws, and tore him with fierce teeth ; 
Blood spouted forth, and he fell on the ground. 

JULIUS. 

Afranius, kneel, and swear with me revenge ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Vengeance to Heav'n belongs, and not to me. 

JULIUS. 

Thy color' d sketches of our ancient Eome, 
Thy sickly fancies from thy Christian books, 
Thy plunge within the coward-making font, 
And thy communings with low vulgar sects 
Thy manliness have kill'd. 



80 AFRAN1US. 

AFRANIUS. 

Thy taunt I bear ; 
A world I loathe where only villains win ; 
I hate Kome's boasts of blood. Virtue my aim, 
At whose pure shrine bent low the Grecian sage ; 
He saw in mists what shines in noon's full sun. 
Virtue no more the image of a god 
Shaped in cold marble by immortal art, 
But our Creator breathing in our flesh ; 
Divinity come down to talk with men, 
To drop a tear for them, and for them die, 
Then rise to heav'n a universe to sway. 

JULIUS. 

Stop thou this stuff, and take the oath from me ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Thou wouldst kill all — wouldst strew our bloody streets 
With gasping infancy and dying age ; 
Heav'n can never smile on such dire cruelty. 

JULIUS. 
Let Heav'n then frown, and Hell cry, death for all ! 
When spared the Goth'since yell'd he through our gates ? 
Our city 's marr'd by flames ; our Eomans writhe 
Beneath his lash ; our children are his slaves ; 
Our mothers, wives, and daughters in his arms ! 
Look here, and see mine own deformity ! 
Each drop from this clipp'd ear says — all shall die. 



AFRANIUS. 81 

AFRANIUS. 

Unstain'd by gore shall Eome to glory rise ! 
No spot on that new crown around her brow 
When gleams a cross above her Capitol ! 

JULIUS. 

A sick girl's dream ! 't is blood is freedom's price. 

AFRANIUS. 

Who seeks the right stands like a radiant god 
Whom Heav'n's own hand has arm'd for victory. 
I will not swear to slay the innocent! 

JULIUS. 

Thou shalt ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Shalt ? 

JULIUS. 

Aye, shalt ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Shalt ! do thou beware ! 

JULIUS. 

Do thou, not I, beware ! I would not rouse 
The lion from his lair to feel his fang ; 
A brawl between us is the death of Eome. 
Let me proclaim that Zala has thine heart, 
And on my witness place your whisper'd vows, 
The Goths would kill, and madden'd Romans curse ; 
Two walls of circling flames close o'er thy head. 

6 



82 AFRANIUS. 

AFRANIUS. 

Oh, shall this scheming overmaster me ! 

Ye lofty notions of immortal truth 

By Heav'n inspired, must ye bend now to craft ? 

Must virtue wither in a villain's breath ? 

My Zala or my Eome through me must die. 

JULIUS. 

Tell me if thou wilt swear to kill the Goth ! 



I swear. 

All? 



AFRANIUS. 



JULIUS. 



AFRANIUS. 
All! 

JULIUS. 

All on the feast-day met ? 

AFRANIUS. 



I swear. 



JULIUS. 

Oue spared, or old or young, is death. 
Hence mercy bid farewell, and steel thine heart ! 

[Exit. 

AFRANIUS. 

Alone in night, no guiding hand to clasp \ 

Love draws me here, and there my country calls ; 

The shadow of a doubt on all my life ! 



AFRANIUS. 83 

One bold bad man will gain his evil end 
Before the good, perplex'd, can leave his knees. 
Oh, Heaven, look down, and smile upon my deed ; 
But led by Thee I '11 go through this thick night ; 
Beyond smiles Truth in her eternal light. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — A banqueting-hall in a palace. The King a 
the head of the table ; Gothic courtiers around. 

KING. 

My friends, let every lip express our joy ! 
No more to Christ, but Thor, we give our thanks. 
This feast recalls the hour when our brave Goths 
Seized Home's proud eagle which had awed a world, 
And clipp'd his plumes with their victorious swords. 

FIRST GOTH. 

First to our gods we brimming goblets fill ! 

[All drink. 

SECOND GOTH. 

Next, to our warrior-shades we quaff our wine ! 
Our fathers fed with blood the eye of Rome ; 
Their sons have seen her lords with wild beasts fight. 

\_All drink. 



84 AFRANIUS. 

KING. 
Blind Fate rules Thor himself, and sinks in dust, 

Or lifts amid the clouds — to Fate we drink. 

\All drink . 

Let song now fling all shadows from the soul ! 

ALL SING. 

To Thor, to Thor, to Thor 
Send up the shout of war ! 
To Thor, to Thor our cry 
When battle fires the sky ! 
To Thor the war-spoils bring, 
And round red altars sing ! 

THIRD GOTH. 

But why, King, this paleness on thy cheek ? 
What airy shape doth fix thy straining eye ? 

KING. 

A shadow, but a shadow — there, 't is pass'd ! 
Let music drive its darkness from my brain ! 

ALL SING. 

As the wine of the feast gives its strength to the eye, 
As our battle-swords flash their red light o'er the sky, 
'T is the victor of Jove, our own Thor we behold, 
Him who tore from the Csesar his purple and gold. 

KING. 

Thor conquer'd Christ and Jove, and hence my god. 
His thunders loud ! the air is quivering flame ! 



AFRANIUS. 85 

Hell seems with Heaven to fight and gain my soul ; 
The peal, the flash to me are ominous. 

FOURTH GOTH. 

Nay ! Heav'n is telling that its clouds drop rain 
To make the golden crops and mellow fruits, 
And give its joyous sparkle to the wine. 

KING. 

The pang is gone — drain now the brimming cups 
To drown these cares that grin about our throne, 
And pierce like thorns the head that wears a crown. 

FIRST GOTH. 

To Alaric, who first our banner waved 
Above the Capitol, and sleeps now safe 
In coftin'd gold beneath Busentinus ! 

[All drink. 

KING. 

I will the casement seek, and court the winds 
Of Heaven to play on my quick-throbbing brow. 

[Aside at the window. 
Some spirit spreads black wings upon the night, 
And breathes a subtle poison through the air. 
Away these images from memory ! 
My soul is like yon cloud that hangs o'er Eome 
To hide the stars, while torches flash below, 
And fill the spectral sky with lurid glare. 



86 AFRAN1US. 

SECOND GOTH. 

To peerless Zala, royal rose of Borne ! 

May north and south alike love her sweet bloom ! 

[All drink. 

KING. 

Zala, ye said ! that word brings back my dreams ! 

The red moon rides amid the flying clouds, 

While fountains spout beneath in streams of blood, 

Leaping through air in demon mockery ! 

A shrouded matron from an altar tears 

A queenly bride whose voice shrieks out our fall ! 

Tempestuous shouts now pierce my aching ear 

Like screams of drowning men out on the sea, 

Above the storm and thunder of the wave ! 

Away these shows of joy ! this emptiness ! 

Why deck my death-bed with the flowers of spring ? 

Why spread a feast beside my yawning grave ? 

Heaven speaks in fire, and earth casts up her dead ! 

Enter Messengers. 

FIRST MESSENGER. 

Excuse my homage, King, and hear my words ! 
Our Eoman slaves on by Afranius led — 

KING (striking him to the floor). 
Ill-omen'd owl, 1 11 stop thy boding voice ! 
Ye gods, how writhes the knave like some trod worm ! 

SECOND MESSENGER. 

I fear, King, my news will cost my life ! 



AFRANIUS. 87 

KING. 
Speak out ! the storm has pass'd, and now my veins 
Beat like an infant's pulse. 

SECOND MESSENGER., 

By Julius stirr'd, 
And by Afranius led, and bound by oaths 
To kill each Goth they meet, the Eoman slaves 
Have arm'd, and shed our blood, and fire our homes. 

KING. 

Quick, fly, my friends, while I defend my throne ! 

[Exeunt all hut King. 
Julius, thy mother's blood spots o'er this hand, 
And thou, unconscious, dost avenge the stain. 
The eye of Heav'n is on the murd'rer's track ; 
Not for a guilty king his throne a shield ! 
Omnipotence would drag me up from hell, 
Or pluck me from the stars to meet my fate ! 
Eage on, ye storms ! ye thunders, peal my doom ! 
I feel beneath my feet a tott'ring throne ! 

Enter Afranius. 
Ha ! serpent, is it thou ? I thought not this ! 
My love to thee requited with thy sword ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Thou art the foe of Eome, and hence must die. 

KING. 

I strike thee, slave ! 
[The King rushes at Afranius, hut after a struggle is killed. 



88 AFRANIUS. 

AFRANIUS (over the hody) . 

My hate gash'd not that flesh 
On which these tears drop down in agony ; 
'T was love for thee, Italia, pierced this king ; 
Else murder's stain would be eternal here. 
Rebellion, oh, most terrible thy front, 
Though shaped by Heav'n's own hand, and from the sleep 
Of calm endurance by an angel waked 
To put the mantle of thy terrors on, 
And ride the whirlwind ; for thy path is blood, 
Groans are thy music, and thy breath is flame : 
Thou dost to death-pangs turn the infant's smile, 
While o'er her cold dead babe the mother weeps. 
Nay, at thy feet I see my Zala lie, 
Pale on her face the light of woman's love. 
Liberty, thy price is blood, and yet 
Humanity must burst each tyrant's chain ! 

Enter Zala {pursued by Julius with a drawn dagger). 

ZALA. 

Save me, my love ! Save, oh, save me ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Back, slave, 
On thy life ! back, or thou shalt die ! 

JULIUS. 

Ha ! caught, 
Afranius, caught ! Thy fate too strong for faith ! 
There cries to thee thy love, and here thy oath ! 



AFRANIUS. 89 

Thy heart and honor have now join'd in war ; 
Kill thou this girl, or perjure thine own soul ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Incarnate Mercy could not cleanse the spot ! 

ZALA. 

I bare my breast to thee ! drain out each drop, 
And with my blood pay down thine honor's price ! 

AFRANIUS. 

I will obey my heart, and not my head, 

And trust that Heav'n will smile away my sin. 

JULIUS. 

Then mine the blow — my hand pays off the score : 
Now with her life I will avenge mine ear ! 

[Julius attempts to stab Zala. Afranius, seizing 
him, throws him violently down. 

AFRANIUS {stooping to examine the body). 
The villain's pulse is still ! Zala, we fly. 

zala {pointing to the King). 
Behold these eyes that stare into thy face, 
These lips compress'd in their last agony, 
This drooping head, these cold and nerveless limbs, 
These wounds which murder shriek ! thy friend's, thy 

king's ! 
A father's corpse lies there between our hearts. 



90 AFRANIUS. 

AFRANIUS. 
Forgive the blow ! 't was Heav'n's high will, not mine ; 
A month will find my power firm in our Eome, 
And then I will proclaim thee as my wife. 

ZALA. 

That blood has left a spot no rite can purge. 

AFRANIUS. 

If Heav'n blots out my sin, why wilt not thou ? 
In some old temple I can hide thee safe 
Until this tempest passes from our path. 

ZALA. 

Ne'er Hope can bind her halo round our lives ; 

The past may fringe my sorrows with its light, 

But not its golden ray can chase my gloom ; 

A crimson sea divides love cannot cross ; 

My life a stain on thine — each heart-throb here 

Within this breast proclaims thy broken vow. 

This glittering dagger, snatch'd when Havoc's cry 

Wild-hurtling through the air our palace reach'd, 

Will be my passport to elysian fields 

Where I to thee will glide made pure by death, 

And spend eternal ages in thy love. 

AFRANIUS. 

This is no time for words, I bear thee off. 

\Exit with Zala in his arms. 



AFRAN1US. 91 

JULIUS {slowly rising). 
Kill'd, not yet ! no thanks to thee, Afranius ! 
But, dead, my soul would wander bodiless 
To mar thy bliss. Thy fireside should grow dark, 
When jealousy's sharp thorn in thee I 'd plant, 
And breathe suspicion on the treach'rous air, 
Till Zala's beauty seem'd deformity ; 
Her breast of love cold as the mountain's crown ; 
Loathsome her touch ; a harlot's trick her kiss. 
Spurning this king, her blood and thine I '11 have ; 
Eemorseless Fate draws round remorseless folds ! 
Bright as the morning now may smile your skies, 
Yet from this broken oath a storm shall grow 
Blacker than night, and charged for both with death. 



Scene II. — Temple of Apollo in Rome. Sibyl engaged 
in her incantations. 

Ye gods who from the azure hills look down 
To trace the thoughts that weave our destiny, 
Watching each charm as girlish beauty bursts 
To womanhood, and ye who manhood guard, 
Leading its eagle-wing up to the sun 
That it may soar where coward-natures sink, 
Alas, grim darkness o'er your children scowls, 
And Julius vengeful stalks amid the gloom. 
Encircled in this scroll, their mystic fate, 
While yet my oath forbids to break the seal ! 



92 AFRANIUS. 

I '11 stand upon the temple's eastern porch, 

And Phoebus as he lifts his face of fire 

Above the hills may show the token wish'd. [Exit. 

Enter Afranius and Zala from opposite parts. 

AFRANIUS. 

Come to my arms ! the veil lifts from our lives ! 
The drop baptismal glitt'ring on thy brow- 
Stood sparkling there a prophet of new joy. 

ZALA. 

When I before the Cross renounced our gods, 
The wall between our hearts itself fell down ; 
Our mingled lives shall flow from earth to heav'n. 

AFRANIUS. 

Where once night-brooding doubt sat on my life 
And turn'd each action to abortive thought, 
Faith like an angel smiles and bids me on. 
To do, or bear, or die, alike to us, 
Since Heav'n, we know, unwinds our destiny. 

ZALA. 

Like some full cup whose sparkling drops brim o'er, 
My heart o'erflows with joy — but thou must fly. 
See, Julius peers around that column's base ! 

JULIUS {appearing). 

Afranius, duped again ; I 'm not yet dead, 
But live to blast thy love, thy name, thy life. 



AFRANIUS. 93 

AFRANIUS. 

Hell is unlock'd to belch thee from its flames. 

ZALA. 

Ye pillars of yon dome, oh, crush the wretch ! 
What is thine errand here ? 

JULIUS. 

Canst thou not tell ? 
Thy father maim'd me thus and died ; by whom ? 
The hand of him, my tool, whom most I loathe. 

ZALA. 

This not enough ? 

JULIUS. 

'T is much, not all I ask. 
Crush'd by contempt, love turns to brooding hate, 
Waking the keenest of all mortal pangs 
That gnaw till death will keep from rival arms. 

AFRANIUS. 

Man yet in form, a demon hast thou turn'd ! 

JULIUS. 

Afranius, thou hast won the heart I loved ; 
Need I tell thee how for this I hate thee ? 
A blow from thy clench' d fist fell on me here ; 
Each hour it burns, and tingles in my nerves, 
And boils along the channels of my blood, 
And, mounting to my brain, it crazes me. 

[Shouting heard. 



94 AFRANIUS. 

Ha ! ye are mine ! Our Eomans fill the place, 
And cry out for his blood who broke his oath. 

Enter Soldiers. 

Drag this weak traitor to a felon's death ! 

AFRANIUS. 

Nay S ye minions, back ! I am Afranius ! 

This voice rang out amid the clash of arms ; 

This hand flung first your banner to the winds, 

And slew the tyrant in his palace-hall. 

Him will ye kill who struck your fetters off, 

And pay back with his blood the debt ye owe ? 

Stand! I say, stand, and hold my person sacred ! 

I '11 come before your judges in an hour, 

And answer then the charges ye may urge ; 

But not with pinion'd hands and head droop'd down 

While the vile rabble hoots behind my back. 

Nay ! I will walk as now, towering and firm, 

With the bold tread of manly innocence 

And conscious service render'd to the state, 

And prove upon my side humanity. 

Ye are Eomans ! respect me, too, a Eoman ! 



AFRANIUS. 95 

ACT V. 

Scene I. — A temple of Jupiter. 

SIBYL. 

For naught I have essay'd my mystic arts ; 

My prayers are useless, and my spells are vain ; 

Or anger'd are the gods, or has old age 

My powers benumb'd, and dimm'd my baffled eyes ? 

On every side teem signs I may not read ; 

The arrowy swallows from their chimney-tops, 

Majestic swans that o'er their shadows swim, 

With vultures circling up till specks they seem 

Across the white of clouds ; and wars on earth, 

And blazing battles o'er the fiery sky, 

I scan in vain, nor make the future out. 

Yet Hope will see these pillars rise around, 

Yon dome uplift, while breathing marbles line 

With forms of life again these lonely aisles, 

And once more Romans on these pavements kneel. 

Immortal Jove, come here from yonder cloud ! 

Ah ! sailing o'er its fringe of silver'd light, 

Then lost to view, thine eagle's form I see ; 

Gleaming in lightning-fires he sweeping comes 

And cleaves with his broad breast the stormy air ! 

Flashes thy thundering bolt to strike thy bird ! 

He shrieking falls and with him falls our Koine ! 

Broad opens now the future to my sight 

Where Havoc blasts, and Eome sinks down in night ! 



96 AFRANIUS. 

Scene II. — The Roman Forum. Yarro, Lucius, and 
Tltanius robed as Judges ; Afranius and Zala stand- 
ing as accused ; Julius as Prosecutor. 

VARRO. 

Pris'ners ! are ye prepared ? 

AFRANIUS. 

We are, my Lords ! 

VARRO. 

Then let these shouts be hush'd, nor Justice lift 

Her beam where storms thus roar. The charge ye know ! 

AFRANIUS. 

And stand to meet ! 

VARRO. 

A Roman shall have right. 

AFRANIUS. 

Our sole defence is in the very deed. 

VARRO. 

Julius, stand forth, and state what thou wilt urge. 

JULIUS. 

I charge he broke his oath which bound to kill 
Each Goth he met on the high festal day. 

VARRO. 

The proofs produce ! nay, the most certain proofs. 
Without sure proofs, through us, no Koman dies. 



AFRANIUS. 97 

JULIUS. 

Ye judges, hear ! I '11 give what ye demand. 

That night of massacre I sought this girl, 

Who saw me, and wild-shrieking ran away. 

Enraged, with dagger drawn, I follow'd her ; 

She flew along the hall, and like a fawn 

Sped on from room to room, till, urged by fate, 

She saw Afranius o'er her father's corpse, 

And scream'd for help. I shouted out, " Thy oath ! " 

He hurl'd me down and bore the girl away, 

A refuge making near Apollo's shrine, 

As all these Eomans know, who seized them there. 

Now I or he, I claim, must kill this girl, 

And, if his hand refuse, he too must die. 

VARRO. 

Not hate, but justice, should thy words inspire. 

JULIUS. 

I am not here for right, but for revenge ! 

This blazes through my veins, and burns my brain, — 

Stung by his blow, disfigured by her sire, 

I only live to quench my hate in blood. 

VAERO. 

Afranius, speak in answer to this charge. 

AFRANIUS. 

My lords, he owns that malice brought him here, 
Nor hides his hate beneath the forms of law, 

7 



98 AFRANIUS. 

But flaunts it hideous to the day's broad glare. 
I broke my oath, and glory in the deed, 
Since, gain'd its end, its binding force was gone, 
And then to kill had mark'd with murder's stain. 

VARRO. 

Admit not aught to prejudice your cause. 

AFRANIUS. 

I ask not my own life ! nay, ask to die ! 

But why condemn this girl, whose blood would be 

A stain eternal on the name of Eome ? 

She cries through me to save from yon crazed wretch 

Whose nostril now dilates with smell of blood. 

There is a golden line by Heav'n inscribed 

To stay the law's rash steps — 't is Charity. 

Nor is our state yet firm ; the northman's fires 

Will blaze along these hills that stand round Kome ; 

His trumpets peal, his armies seek revenge. 

With useless murder then incense him not. 

Your judgment we await ! 

varro {after consultation by the Judges). 
Our duty plain ! 
Afranius has confessed his oath he broke, 
And hence compels us to pronounce his death — 
Unless he kill the girl. 

AFRANIUS. 

My Lords, ye mock. 
On life's verge poised, will ye insult me there ? 



AFRANIUS. 99 

Am I a thief round whom the rabble yell — 
A wretch whose honor as his robe sits loose, 
And who would sell his manhood for his breath, 
Piercing the heart he loved to save his life ? 
If this ye think of me, I beg to die ! 

VARRO. 

To save thy life, we strain'd for thee the law ; 
Mercy refused, thy death is thine own deed. 

AFRANIUS. 

My lords, I know I Ve dream'd — dream'd of a time 

When Eome should win a brighter glory back 

Than flash'd from vict'ry 'neath her eagle's eye 

To shape her marbles, and inspire her song ; 

When breathed her orators heroic fire, 

And swarm'd her streets till beat here Earth's great heart. 

I when a boy have climb'd yon Capitol 

To read in stony lips and eyes her wrongs, 

While waving in the moon the ivy sigh'd, 

And spirits groan' d to stars their grief that Koine 

Should feel despair eternal at her heart. 

Like some spired city o'er a dusky plain, 

Oft through the future's darkness rose to view 

Eesplendent visions of her olden fame. 

Death paints another scene before my sight. 

Crown'd on these hills, with crook shall rule a Priest 

In scarlet robed, and claiming to be God ; 

Where thund'ring legions bore our eagles on 

He shall with monks a second empire build, 



100 AFRANIUS. 

Whose spoil is souls, whose traffic Mercy's blood, 

Whose power, not swords, but Heav'n's own barter'd keys. 

Beyond his reign, prophetic years will come 

To shed upon the earth millennial bloom ; 

And yet, beyond, a city bursts to view 

Whose streets are gold, whose walls far-flashing gems ; 

Its sun His Face divine who died for man, 

And rules Creation as Eternal King. 

zala ( tearing away her veil). 
Afranius, thou must live ! 

AFRANIUS. 

On yonder cloud 
An angel smiles, and calls us to the skies. 

ZALA {rushing and kneeling before the Judges). 

Hear me, ye judges, and ye men of Koine ! 

Me make the victim which your laws demand ! 

Mar not his form, nor let your axe distain 

That brow which Fame and Freedom both entwine ! 

VARRO. 

Lictors, proceed, and lead them to the block ! 

zala (kneeling before Afranius). 

'T is I have call'd this stroke down on thine head ! 
Let, then, on me the blow of Justice fall ! 
The state ordains, and hence 't is law, not crime. 
Oh, cut earth's ties ! I '11 gain celestial wings, 



AFRANIUS. 101 

And soon our souls will meet, and we in light 

Will trace the windings of Life's groves and streams, 

And thrill with love eternal to our King ! 

Enter Sibyl. 

sibyl. 
Make room ! make room ! and hear the gracious gods ! 

VARRO. 

Sibyl, thy looks some message tell from Heav'n ! 

SIBYL. 

My age and name are proofs of what I say. 
Julius, thy mother on the couch of death 
This parchment gave, and till the gods should speak 
She made me swear to never break the seal. 
Just now within the temple of great Jove 
I heard a voice in awful thunders say — 
■ Fly, to the judges fly, and give the scroll ! " 
Then silence settled in the solemn place. 

[Varro taking the scroll, the Judges read it and 
consult. 

VARRO. 

This is an interference from the gods, 
As, Eomans, all your judges do affirm. 

CITIZENS. 

The scroll ! the scroll ! tell us what says the scroll]! 



102 AFRAN1US. 

VARRO. 
An infant of the king, a girl, expired, 
And from the breast of her who Julius bore 
The former Queen took Zala as her child. 
A Roman thus, and not within the oath, 
Your judges do pronounce th' accused are free. 

JULIUS. 

A shallow lie to rob me of revenge ! 

[Afranius and Zala embrace amid the sJwuts of 
the people. 
Oh ! hated sight more sharp than pangs of hell ! 
Worse than the tooth of Cerberus that kiss ! 
That bliss I '11 blast, and take eternal fire. 

[Julius, rushing, stabs Afranius. 

afranius. 
Oh ! fatal stab that robs of Love and Eome ! 
Death darkens o'er mine eyes, and earth swims round ! 
Zala, thy face shines like the star of eve, 
And Life immortal bursts on all my gloom ! 

[Afranius dies, and Zala, falling, expires on his body. 

SIBYL. 

Ye gods, had he but breathed till set yon sun, 

In him had lived for us Eternal Eome ! 

Hope made me blind ! Jove's bolt was prophecy ! 

VARRO. 

Lictors, the murd'rer seize, and hold him fast ! 



AFRANIUS. 103 

JULIUS. 
Hands off, ye men of Rome ! I '11 cheat you all, 
And spoil your vengeance with this dagger's point ! 

[Julius stabs himself and dies. 

SIBYL. 

Where I divined new glory for our Rome, 

The voice was heard through Jove's majestic aisles 

That I might snatch these from a felon's death, 

And give their names immortal to the stars. 

Oh, long 'mid gloom shall Rome in scarlet sit, 

The nations ruling with a priestly hand, 

And empires luring on the path of death 

By the false glitter on her ghostly brow ! 

But now on these old eyes new brightness streams, 

Nor kings nor pontiffs shine beneath its beams ; 

Italia ! when thy capital is Rome, 

Eternal glory then shall burst o'er Freedom's home ! 



ARISTON. 



FRAGMENTS. 

[ A room in Alcander's house at Athens. 

ALCANDER. 

O BROTHER, Athens cannot be so base ; 
Her honors on my brow for twice ten years 
Are proofs she knows how much she owes my love. 

HEROCLES. 

Thy love of her, Alcander, or thyself ? 
Hast thou not lived and blossom' d on the state, 
And hung thy family tree with flow'rs and fruits ? 
Democracies are quick to read men through, 
And weigh what they deserve of good or ill, 
While often envy hurls their idols down. 

ALCANDER. 

Herocles, thou art bold, I think too bold. 
Athens will never dare to frown on me ; 
If she prove false, I '11 pay her back tenfold. 



ARISTON. 105 

HEROCLES. 

Ha ! this thy love ! The tiger feed, a child 

May stroke his skin ; keep back his meat, he glares, 

And shows his fangs. 

ALCANDER. 

Snch insults I '11 not bear ; 
Nor shall the mob exile me with the shell. 
All the best blood of Greece is in our veins, 
And from the gods themselves our pedigree. 
Thrice round my brow the crown has hung its leaves, 
While shook the Agora with shouts that moved 
Athena throned on her Acropolis. 

HEROCLES. 

The mountain-tree invites the thunderbolt, 
Which blazes harmless o'er the modest vales. 
Athens, Alcander, hast thou not yet learn'd ? — 
Just where she most exalts she most suspects. 
Shrill envy hisses in her wildest praise ; 
Her hand binds on the crown to tear it off ; 
Her noblest worth she dooms to banishment ; 
The warmer her embrace the blow more sure. 

ALCANDER. 

Curse on her mobs ! they 11 find in me their match. 
The snake, untouch'd, will slumber in his coil, 
But, struck, darts venom through the quiv'ring flesh. 

HEROCLES. 

Thy threats but prove thy heart to Greece most false ; 



106 ARISTON. 

True love to her has not its life in self, 
Seeks not its own, o'er pride exalts the State, 
And, like a tree whose shatter'd length lies low, 
Will from old roots lift high new boughs to heav'n. 

ALCANDEE. 

I 've been a fool ! duped by the crowd's vile breath. 
Fortune across my sky has beam'd so bright 
That I will madden in the shades of night. 

HEROCLES. 

Who mounts on clouds towards the gilding sun 
Will see his painted splendors turn to air, 
And drop mid crowds, who yell to see him fall. 

ALCANDER. 

Help me, ye gods, and keep me from such wreck ! 
Yes ! all earth's blessings leave behind a gloom, 
As sculptured figures crown'd with grace and light 
Cast spectral shadows in the brilliant sun. 

HEROCLES. 

Thou art indeed above a precipice ; 
Thy birth and dignities will bring the blow. 
Thy head made for a king, thy spurning foot 
And flashing eye awake the crowd's distrust. 
The men thy name who shout thine exile mean, 
And thee unmake to show from them the power 
Which Fame as thine doth trumpet o'er the world. 



ARISTON. 107 

ALCANDER. 

Let Persia, then, fix firm her throne in Greece ! 
Better one king than a vile tyrant crowd.. 

HEROCLES. 

The people know thy heart inclines thee there, 
And thee the shell will drive to live with kings. 
Yet those, mere children in the Agora, 
Upon the battle-field are matchless men, 
Who Attica have wall'd with adamant, 
And Asia's banner'd tyrants have defied. 
Our Athens shines the type of that bright day 
When they who own the State the State shall sway. 



helia {kneeling before Alcander). 

Let pity move thy breast ! Recall thy kiss 

First press'd on his sweet lips, the light on thee 

From his joy-sparkling eye, the dimpling smile 

Which stirr'd thy father's heart, the prattled word 

Whose music-thrill awaked new worlds of love ; 

His childhood's beauty, and his boyhood's morn ; 

His manhood's glory which Apollo's seem'd, 

And moved to say — " There goes the pride of Greece ! " 

Oh, save our son and bind him to thy heart ! 

Exalting him, Alcander, lift thyself, 

And kindle for our house from gloom a light. 

Thy life beats in his blood — his soul from thee, 

And manly majesty, which mirrors thine ; 



108 ARISTON. 

By thee cast off, he wanders to despair. 

Oh, what can stop a mother's words of love ! 

I kneel between my son and utter woe, 

One hand in his, the other clasping thine, 

And am 'twixt him and thee a link of life. 

I kiss thy feet, and bathe them with my tears. 

Oh, in his haggard face I beauty see 

Come back, and hope and love shed o'er their light. 

He yet shall be the glory of our state, 

And where he goes, to live or die, I go ; 

With kisses on his lips I seal my vow. 



ARISTON. 

Dost thou remember, Calophos, the day 
When in the fight, beneath my boyish arm, 
Nine soldiers fell, and lay piled round in heaps, 
Helm upon helm, and shield on shatter'd shield, 
While I stood wounded on the slipp'ry ground, 
My corselet cleft, a spear thrust in my breast, 
O'er all my armor blood, and reel'd my brain 
And steps ? Now in mine ear that battle-roar — 
Well, Calophos, not in that thick of death, 
That clash of meeting swords, that ring of shields, 
The tramp, the groans, the shouts of battle's hell, 
Where ghosts flew shrieking o'er the pain and blood, 
Was I so weak, so lost, as here and now. 
I am a slave — a mean, ignoble slave — 
Slave to myself — slave to the foe I hate. 



ARISTON. 109 

I vow to break my chain, and tighten it ; 

I curse the cup, and press it to my lips ; 

I loathe the serpent's cold and snaky coil, 

Yet clasp it round my flesh ! the fang invite 

Whose poison-fire burns in my madden'd brain, 

To wake its hissing phantoms twisting round. 

But a new strength is in me, Calophos ! 

Not from thy words, though wise ; not from thy school, 

Whose fame will gild o'er time ; not from our gods, 

Whose revels make Olympus worse than earth. 

Spurning the laws of custom and of sex, 

My Mother's Love has search'd me in my haunts ; 

In crowd and street has lifted me from earth, 

To thrill me with its touch, its tone, its look, 

Till in my flesh its virtue seems infused, 

And through my soul a power above mine own 

By which I know I yet shall be a man. 



SONGS OF OLYMPUS. 

BACCHUS. 

When young Spring breathes and curls the vine, 
I watch its root ; 
And bud and shoot, 
And grape and mantling leaf are mine. 
From trunk to twig I make glad juices run, 
Till glows the landscape purpling in the sun. 



110 ARISTON. 

Now Fauns and Satyrs sing, and bless ! 

Pan, tune thy pipe ! 

The world is ripe ; 

Those hanging clusters pull and press ! 

Around the earth let bursting currents flow, 

And shouts attest to Heav'n our joy below. 

My crowns of ivy weave, and bring ! 
Let Age and Care 
Our banquet share, 
And foaming wine-cups sparkles fling, 
And kings and beggars swell the festal cry, 
And gods for joy on earth forsake the sky ! 



APOLLO. 

Nay ! bend the noble bow ! 

The graceful quiver take, 
Let nerve and muscle grow ; 

Let strength your courage make ; 
And thus on form and brow impress 
The majesty of manliness. 

Then strike the sounding lyre 
Till your broad bosoms thrill, 

And every pulse is fire, 

And deathless grows the will ! 

Soon Greece will crown you in the game 

With laurels of eternal fame. 



ARISTON. HI 



See round my head these rays ! 

I who the sun-steeds guide. 
The earth, the heaven make blaze, 

And life in light provide, 
I counsel you to turn from wine, 
And in the beams of virtue shine. 



VENUS. 

Kiss'd by the morn from the foam of the sea 

As I slept on its wave, 
Bright Beauty her glory threw over me, 

And I smiled as she gave. 

Oh, soon in my breast glow'd love with his fire, 
And quick quiver' d the thrill 

That oonquers e'en Jove, the all-ruling sire, 
Whom I lead at my will. 

Immortals fly forth my train to attend, 
And where brightens my face 

Olympus will rush its cycles to spend 
In my beauty's embrace. 



DIANA. 

Eed midnight comets from their blazing hair 
Will drop down horror on the waken'd earth ; 

And guilty pleasures, like their fatal glare, 
Start only woe and terror into birth. 



112 ARISTON. 

'T is I who rule in peace the virgin-moon, 

Calm type of lawful wedlock's cloudless bliss ; 

Oh, at the marriage-altar seek life's boon, 
And find the purest joy in virtue's kiss ! 

When bow and quiver on my shoulder press, 
As I at morn may brush the sparkling dew, 

Oft smiling will I pause your home to bless, 
And richest mercies o'er your life will strew. 

CUPID. 

The rose my home, 
My boat a shell, 
O'er earth I roam, 
To cast my spell ; 
And when above the clouds I seek to fly, 
These radiant wings will bear me to the sky. 

My head beams light, 

My heart thrills love, 
And all things bright 
Wake where I move ! 
And Heaven bends down to take me with a smile, 
Since my small arrows men and gods beguile. 

Make bare thy heart ! 

I twang my bow, 
Whose pointed dart 
Rules all below ! 
And e'en immortals, when I make them dream, 
Too brief will find eternal cycles seem 






ARISTON. H3 

MAES. 



Nay ! clash the helm and shield ! 
Brass-armor'd seek the field ! 
The battle-spear swift hurl, 
Where chariots flame and whirl ! 
Prize on your face the scars 
That make you dear to Mars ! 

Your country served, return 
When cease war's fires to burn ; 
Find deathless your renown, 
If Greece shall bind the crown, 
And o'er a grateful land 
Shall make your statues stand. 

Where burns my martial strife, 
Seek there the strength of life ; 
In Heaven's eternal plan 
But battle makes the man, 
And brightens on the sky 
His immortality. 



A garden in Athens in view of the sea and the Acropolis. 

AEISTON. 

Athena glows on her Acropolis, 
And seems to sit a goddess in the sun, 
Whose lingering glory turns her form to flame, 

8 



114 ARISTON. 

And flashes from her spear, while opposite, 
The moon is lifting from the sea her face 
Bound, calm, and full ; and near, the star of love 
Looks bright as Eos when he eyes the gods, 
And from her urn of light drops peace on earth. 
Now trembling into heav'n are night's pure lamps 
Which burn from age to age, a mystery. 
A breath of flowers is in the evening air, 
And as the moonbeams slant along the grass, 
The crimson of the rose is turn'd to gold, 
And shadows spread their silence o'er my heart, 
While passion's waves sink gentle as this dew, 
And reason bathes my soul in calm resolve. 
My Ino, come — than yon starr'd blue that round 
Enspheres the world, more sweet and pure thy love 
Which circles me, and smiles my canopy. 



PERSIAN KING. 

Wretch, thou art ours ! thy flesh, thy soul are ours ! 
Go home to Greece ! thy deed will follow thee ! 
Thy name, subscribed by thee, to Athens sent, 
Will be our mortgage on thy treacherous neck, 
And make thee do, our slave, what thou wilt loathe ; 
Though far away will move the hand we buy, 
To open to our gold the gates of Greece : 
Or else will give thy carcass to the mob, 
And bring thy brother vultures on thy flesh, 
Clouding thy house with an eternal shame. 



ARISTON. 115 

We cannot love, but we can use thee, Greek ! 
Thy land we hate where we our armies lost ; 
Our shatter'd ships yet lie along your shores ; 
Your temple shrines our plunder'd trophies deck, 
And we will pluck them thence by force or guile. 
Thee we despise ! thy race forever hate, 
Which, unsubdued, will overthrow all kings, 
And give this world to lawless liberty. 
Yes ! we will pour o'er Greece, weak by thy gifts, 
A Persian deluge as when ocean heaves 
Itself on shore, or heav'n falls down in floods. 
'T is thus we hold thee in the grasp of fate ; 
Here Persian spears, and there the Grecian's hate. 

[Exeunt King and Courtiers. 



ALCANDER. 

What line can fathom my deep infamy ? 

My past, how bright it shows mid this lone gloom ! 

Thine image, Athens, shines most beautiful ! 

New glory rests on thine Acropolis ! 

Thine Agora's immortal shapes how fair ! 

Athena's form towers o'er her Parthenon, 

And in his temple Jove majestic sits. 

My home seems smiling in the morning light 

Oh, eyes, but weep, till vengeance stops your dew ! 

The husband loves the bride who charm'd his youth, 

Yet, stain'd by her his bed, will choke her cries, 

Will rend with steel the form he half adores, 

And drop his tears down in the blood he sheds. 



116 A BIS TON. 

Athens, the more I loved, the more I loathe. 
On earth for me from hence nor home nor grave ! 
For me in eyes no tears, in hands but death ; 
Around me roll wild seas of gore and gloom ; 
Stung ever onward to the doom I dread — 
Afraid to live and more afraid to die. 
To my sold soul is left its one dire work, — 
By Persian swords to draw forth Grecian blood, 
And quench the tires of an eternal hate. 



A grove between the Grecian and the Persian camps. 
ALCANDER. 

Ye Gods, is this my doom ? In Athens I 

Dragg'd to the light the crew who barter'd off 

Themselves for bribes, — vermin fixed on the state 

To suck its blood into their bloated flesh, 

And who outhunger the hyena's maw. 

I loathed the wretch who sold his soul, then fawn'd 

For higher bids. Yet now, by Persia bought, 

Black spectral fingers reach across the sea, 

And with my bond forever lash me on. 

Greece, thy stones cry out against my sin ! 

Thy waving banners flaunt it to the winds ; 

The swords of heroes flash it in mine eyes ! 

The seas in midnight yells fierce roar it forth ; 

The hills to hills shout my dire treason back, 

And the still stars, and the great sun look down 

On me in scorn — so paid my pride and rage ! 



ARISTON. 117 

A dungeon. Alcander in chains. 
ALCANDER. 

Ye Gods ! my brain is fire ! my heart is stone ! 
Wild horrors throng these walls and shake my sonl. 
Grim, goblin shapes come creeping o'er my gloom ; 
Old warriors seam'd with wounds, meek matrons skin, 
And mangled babes with their reproachful eyes, 
Look down on me, while spirits shriek around, 
And furies hurl red torches through the air. 
'T is Greece with corpses piled lies on my breast 
With an eternal weight — the cause, my bond 
Which sign'd me o'er to hell to do its work — 
My everlasting lash to whip me on. 
The traitor sells himself, and buys such joy ! 



ARISTON. 

Oh ! blacker grows my life, supernal gods ; 

A father's blood spots o'er this moonlit earth, 

And that red mouth cries out, " Thou parricide ! " 

A sire kill'd by his son, as gives some tree 

Upon the mountain's brow a filial limb 

Unto the axe that fells its shatter'd trunk ; 

My hand has pierced the heart that fill'd my veins, 

And quench'd in night the soul that lit mine own. 

But yet a traitor's that majestic form. 

Both shame and grief are in the drops I weep ; 

The father melts mine eye to tender tears, 



118 ARISTON. 

The traitor turns the gushing floods to ice. 
Thus liberty groans up through death to light. 
Here, near my father's flesh, I, freedom's son, 
Kneel down, and swear to fight till Greece be free. 



ARISTON. 

Here to this council I unfold my name, 
My secret giving to the ear of Greece, 
Lest it may perish in the battle-shock. 
Wild Pleasure stain'd my life, till Love redeem'd, 
And gave me back to live and die for Greece. 
Her form I see, as when Athena lifts, 
Through some dark cloud o'er the Acropolis, 
Her flashing image to the morning sun. 
Ye Greeks, a soul resolved is victory. 
United stand, and, strengthen'd by the gods, 
Hurl Persia from yon hill, and sink her ships 
Beneath the weight of the eternal sea ! 
Only from martyr-drops is Freedom born. 
Our deeds will live in song to thrill our sons, 
And conquer time by Art's immortal touch, 
Till in their splendor coming ages say, — 
Behold the spot where Greece saved Liberty ! 



[Ariston kneels, is crowned by Calophos amid the 
shouts of the People, and then, rising, speaks. 



ARISTON. 119 

ARISTON. 

My Calophos, first honor to the gods 

From whose immortal wings drop victory : 

As their own gift we take the praise of Greece. 

Yet mid these shouts, and circled with this crown, 

I here do blush that I can boast no scar, 

While I see those who from grim battle pluck'd, 

Not graceful wreaths, but victory with wounds. 

The private soldier bears the brunt of war, 

And wins the garland his commander wears. 

There stands a man whose arm is on the field, 

And at his side is one who left his blood. 

That soldier's eyes, pierced through, see not this pomp, 

While he, a sailor, on a grappling ship 

Lost both his hands, which, dropping, tinged the sea. 

Yon brave man's breast was fill'd with Scythian darts, 

And from this vet'ran's flesh I pluck'd a spear. 

Go where the jackals yell and vultures fly, 

To find their dust who saved, and smile o'er Greece ! 

Where battle laid thern low, carved from their spoils, 

To them immortal monuments shall rise ; 

While on our coins, and chanted in our songs, 

Their names shall teach our sons to die for Greece. 

Eternal Freedom lives in martyr deeds. 



BELSHAZZAR. 



FRAGMENTS. 

A private garden in Babylon. 

ELI. 

MY gentle Eva, tune thy harp, and sing 
Till these blind eyes see old Judea's hills, 
And feel the captive's comfort of a tear. 

EVA. 

Oh, father, in these strings still sleeps a spell 
To charm away each sorrow from thy soul, 
But my sad touch can wake no music now ; 
When circling hawks cast shadows on its nest, 
The bird to Heav'n trills not its morning joy. 

ELI. 

I love to hear the songs of thy young life ; 
More sad my gloom, more deep my solitude, 
Without thy harp and lip to give me cheer. 

EVA. 

'T is soul, and not the sound, melts grief away ; 
Song loves liberty as the birds love light, 



BELSHAZZAR. 121 

And when the cage is still the grove bursts forth. 

Just as the heart is bound the lip is cold. 

But, father, on yon willow let me hang 

My silent harp, and tell to thee my dream, 

And when my cloud has pass'd my song may flow. 

ELI. 

My Eva, take my hand, and lead me where 
Oft with thy mother I have stood and gazed ; 
Her image there, she whispers through my gloom. 

[Eva guides Eli to the willoiu, against ivhich she places 

her harp, when they sit under the shade on a grassy 

hank. 

EVA. 

Father, would thou couldst see yon golden sky 
Where paints the sun his crimson on the clouds ; 
The light and shadow chasing o'er the grass ; 
These oaks that join their patriarchal limbs 
Across yon stream, bright-flashing when 't is seen, 
Yet murmuring music though its way be hid, 
And teaching us, if dark our path, to sing ! 



A 'piazza on the Hanging Garden. 
BELSHAZZAR. 

War is the work of fools — to wear a helm 

And plume, and live shut up in brass, 

And thirst, and starve, and stagger 'neath your toil, 



122 BELSHAZZAR. 

Then hack and kill to pile o'er plains with men 
Whose flesh shall fatten dogs, and for your pay 
A rabble's shout, — this glory's vaunted prize 
Which Cyrus loves, and can have for himself. 
While last my stores, and walls resist his blows 
With wine and love I still will brighten life, 
My crownesteem just for the joys it brings, 
And when these die, the bauble give my foe. 

ATOSSA. 

A boy art thou, Belshazzar, not a king. 

But now the secret that doth load thy heart ! 

BELSHAZZAR. 

A rose of Sharou in my palace blooms 

More dear to me than crowns, and on my breast 

I '11 wear my Jewish flower, or die accursed. 

The soul was in me once to make a man, 

But I was born a king — that blasted it. 

'T is love must turn my blight to bloom, and fit 

Me for my diadem ; or, oh ! ye flowers, 

Ye trees on terraces piled into heav'n 

By my great ancestor — ye walls he rear'd 

O'ertopping clouds — thou watch-tower lone cf stars 

Ye palaces and trophied monuments, 

Built from a plunder'd world to blaze our fame, 

But stain'd with tears and blood, link'd with you all 

By fate, must I too fall, and share your curse ? 

Death's pulse beats in my life as oft I hear 



BELSHAZZAR. 123 

Wild shrieks drown mirth beneath my battlements. 
A sword waves o'er yon towers, and round my crown 
A serpent coils, and sins of ages flame, 
Until I seem like that last mountain-pine 
Whose shroud of fire is the whole forest's blaze. 

ATOSSA. 

What means thy mood and tones of prophecy ? 
This feather see, whose history I will tell ! 
As I stood here to view the Persian camp 
Whose arms and banners glitter'd in the sun, 
On a white horse rode Cyrus grandly forth, 
And while I gazed, a brilliant bird flash'd by, 
On which down from the clouds an eagle swoop'd 
With beak to bear aloft the crested thing, 
When circling to my feet this feather fell. 

BELSHAZZAR. 

Give me the painted plume — sign of myself, 
The sport of winds — to place it in my crown 
Above mine empire's gems, a type of fate ! 
But hark, a hell-bird comes to croak my doom ! 

ATOSSA. 

I will retire, nor hear our mother rage. 

[Atossa exit 

BELSHAZZAR. 

I will not fear, but pay her with her own ; 
This plume stuck in my crown will madden her. 

Enter Nltocris and Madetes. 



124 BELSHAZZAR. 

NITOCRIS. 

A feather in thy cap — fit diadem 

For thee, thou king of mighty Babylon ! 

BELSHAZZAR. 

T is this I wear which to my nature suits 
That I did suck out from those queenly breasts. 

NITOCRIS. 

Nay ! from thy nurse thy folly flow'd to thee ; 
Nor blood nor milk of mine made such a son. 
But play no more the boy ! that plume take off! 
Put on thy helm, and grasp thy sword and shield ! 
Where harps and moonlit pipes now soothe thy sense 
Let trumpets peal the battle-blast of war ! 
Thy robes of silk exchange for links of steel ! 
The smiles of women for fierce blows with men ! 
Thy feasts for fasts, thy shame for victory ! 

BELSHAZZAR. 

Cease, mother, cease ! 

NITOCRIS. 

Arm, Belshaz'zar, arm ! 
Down from this height your leaguer'd city view, 
Her glory circled by eternal walls ! 
Earth's crown is now for thee to hold or lose. 
Where stood thine ancestor with kingly eye 
To see arise his work, there wilt thou stand 
To see it fall ? the towers he built, wilt thou 



BELSHAZZAR. 125 

Look hence on them while Persians hurl them down ? 
Say, came from me, my son, a soul like that ? 

BELSHAZZAR. 

I beg thee, stop ! 

NITOCRIS. 

And I do beg thee fight ! 

MADETES. 

Low on the earth I crawl and grasp thy knees ; 
Thy faithful eunuch prays thee save thy crown. 

BELSHAZZAR. 

'T is ye, if Cyrus wear it, are the cause. 

NITOCRIS. 

This is thy folly now to madness turn'd ! 

Give me thy diadem ! Thine armor fit 

Around thy mother's form. Above her brow 

Thy helm should wave its plume ! Her hand will hurl 

For thee amid the battle's shock thy spear ; 

And when our foe shall fly it shall be told 

Along our streets, and thunder'd up to clouds, 

That thine old mother saved for thee thy realm, 

^Yhile thou, bedeck'd with flowers and lull'd by lutes, 

Didst on thy couches feast with concubines. 

BELSHAZZAR. 

Insult me not — thy king as well as son ! 
I blame thee for a mother's too fond love. 



126 BELSHAZZAR. 

My youth was flush'd with noble dreams of war, 
The trumpet stirr'd my pulses into fire, 
Until I sought the field to be a king. 
Thy coward love did hedge me in with boys, 
Where Pleasure tied me with her silken cords, 
And took the manhood from my pamper'd soul ; 
But who has power to win will keep his crown ; 
Brave men will scorn weak kings, and hurl them down. 
Thus those to empire born dig their own graves, 
While enterprise takes strength from wave and storm, 
To crush voluptuous heirs and mount their thrones. 
I see the truth too late to shun my doom ; 
Eternal Fate mine empire sinks in gloom. 



A room in the palace of Babylon. 

EVA {alone). 

I shall not fall, since o'er me is His shield, 

Who doth make pure the virgin lily's bloom, 

And the bright stars, and the sweet breath of heav'n. 

We bruise the rose to get its scented drop, 

And out from me will trial fragrance fling. 

'T is Battle by its blows keeps Valor strong, 

While Pleasure, flush and full, smiles Virtue down, 

And bribes the guards about her citadel. 

In hue and shape here beauty lives, here music breathes, 

And odors charm, till I swim in such dreams 

As fancy paints in evening's magic tints ; 



BELSHAZZAR. 12' 

The senses these may please, not buy the heart. 

True woman's love cannot be had for crowns ; 

Be he a slave or king, it seeks a man ; 

And ere it find it is a humming-bird 

To glance from flower to flower, but, nested once, 

A nightingale that thrills out constant songs. 



The camp of Cyrus before Babylon. 

CYRUS. 

True men have one prime object of their lives 

Which Heaven helps on, and all below are steps 

Like climbing stairs that circle round a tower 

To gain its top, and give us prospect wide. 

Up to one grand event which caps the whole 

Mounts every step of my predestin'd past. 

My Persian birth, the breath of liberty, 

The discipline that nerved both flesh and soul, 

And throned as lord of all my will : 

The royal splendors then of Media's court, 

Nay ! e'en my grandsire's polish'd luxury ; 

Each after-move on this chessboard of life, 

Where Fate ranged men around me as their king, 

But bore me on to fix my banner here. 

My dreams in youth were flush'd with Babylon, 

And when they troop'd like gorgeous clouds along 

She was the sun that lit their splendors up. 

My manhood now stands centr'd in her light ; 



128 BELSHAZZAR. 

Take her away, my path is all a gloom, 
My life a chaos of discordant plans ; 
With her in view, one blaze of victory ! 
As day's consenting beams meet in the sun, 
So all my being ends in Babylon. 



A room in the palace of Babylon. 

ELI. 

'T is for his sin, king, that Israel serves ; 
This wreathes our yoke, and robes our lives in gloom ; 
When flow true tears, then grace to us will flow ; 
Our chains will then drop off, our temple rise, 
While we on our own soil will kneel and praise. 
Firm as Himself Jehovah's word shall stand ! 

BELSHAZZAR. 

Ha, Jew ! A thought flies flashing o'er my brain ! 
I' 11 test thy God ! Down 'neath our Baal's tower, 
Thy sacred things which in thy temple stood, 
Begirt by lamps and priests, now guarded lie ; 
Thy God I '11 dare, and bring them up from thence, 
And they shall glitter on my festal board. 
Better serve me than rust beneath the ground ! 
Thy God's own lamps shall shine, and see me drink 
From His blest goblets our bright Baal's wine : 
And mark it, Jew, and grave it on thy soul, 
Then tell it to thy God, and ask His help, 



BELSHAZZAR. 129 

Which thou wilt need — hear, Jew, whom I do hate 
Next to thy God — thou from Jehovah's cups 
Shalt drink with me, or I will torture thee, 
Then fling thee o'er our walls to Persian dogs, 
And see how well thy God will guard His Priest. 



The tower of Belus. 

SONGS OF DOOM. 

FIRST SPIRIT. 

From realms where ne'er can flash the light 
I come, I come who make the night, 
And soon, Belshazzar, soon I '11 roll 
Eternal gloom around thy soul. 

SECOND SPIRIT. 

The Spirit of sound is o'er thee, King, 

Thro' earth and thro' heav'n whose thunders ring ; 

By this loud peal I do warn thee now 

To fly, or feel my blight on thy brow. 

THIRD SPIRIT. 



I flashing come, the Soul of fire ; 
I hurl the lightnings in mine ire, 



130 BELSHAZZAR. 

To blast along the sea 

And on the land to kill ; 
So terrible their glee, 
So fierce to do my will. 
Back, false Belshazzar, whence thou came ! 
On thee 1 11 dart my zigzag flame. 

FOURTH SPIRIT. 

I 'm the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of Power, 

To hurl down the ship, and to shake down the tower ; 

'T is grim Death at my side that rideth with me, 

As I rush o'er the land and dash o'er the sea. 

I 'm the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of Power, 

And, Belshazzar, go back, or short is thine hour ! 

FIFTH SPIRIT. 

Thy blood, Belshazzar, from me flows, 
Who won the crown that round thee glows ; 
Thy kingdom stands built by my hand, 
Thy sceptre sways by my command. 
Now by the flesh and by the bones 
Of all our kings beneath these stones ; 
Now by their souls which death holds here, 
And all their hope and all their fear, 
I warn thee, son, away ! away ! 
And seek the realms where shines the day ; 
Else on thy brow Fate writes thy doom, 
And soon will hurl thee to thy tomb, 



BELSHAZZAR. 131 

While on thy name and line a blot, 

And on thy soul eternal spot. 

Thy foe upon thy throne shall sit, 

Then Euin o'er his empire flit ; 

The bat shall fly, and hoot the owl, 

The fox shall lurk, the wolf shall prowl, 

While Babylon beneath the ground 

Lies ages hid in dust to be by strangers found. 

SIXTH SPIRIT. 

Heaven has call'd — the nations hearken ; 

Bound our walls their banners fly ; 
Over earth their armies darken ; 

Send their shouts into the sky. 

Hark ! on stones a hoof is ringing ! 

Arms on arms ! I hear the clash ! 
Up to Heav'n the flames are springing ! 

Wild o'er Babylon their flash ! 

There I see a monarch lying ! 

Blazing round a banquet's light ! 
Blood is on him, gasping, dying — 

Torn his crown and gone his might ! 

One king lies there grim and gory, 

Crown'd his victor I behold ! 
Over Zion bursts new glory ! 

Stands her temple as of old ! 



THE DELUGE. 



YON wood where burst a storm when Adam pass'd 
Accurs'd through Eden's gate, now echoes back 
The axe's constant stroke, and gophers shake 
Their towering tops, then thunder to the ground. 
See patient oxen draw the weary load, 
And pile the plain around that man whose brow 
Has felt the tempests of six hundred years ! 
Since first the mountain heard his sturdy blows 
Twelve crescent moons have silver'd o'er the sky, 
Then turn'd their fuller circles into gold. 
Crowds view the work. Doth here a palace rise, 
Or hence shall glittering tower a temple's dome ? 
Silent the patriarch toils, until his hand 
Has shaped a mighty Ark, heav'd high in air, 
And made to breast the storm and ride the wave. 

What shouts of scornful laughter shake the skies ! 
Now from beyond the flood I hear their taunts, — 
" Ha, venerable fool, what turns thy brain ? 
Where spreads a sea to float th' unwieldy hulk ? 
Or wilt thou sail her on these burning sands ? 
Or shall the sky drop oceans from above, 
Or wilt thou call them from earth's bursting breast ? " 



THE DELUGE. 133 

'T is winter in thy heart, remorseless Scorn ! 
Thy smile disdainful chills the tides of life, 
And merit withers at thy icy touch ; 
Yea ! thou hast snatch' d away the martyr's crown, 
And laugh'd to shut on him the gate of Life. 

I see the patriarch kneel, and while his tears 
Drop on the floor, his modest prayer ascends, 
And soon are hush'd the tempests of his breast. 
Joy lights his soul, and vigor nerves his arm, 
Till on the beam loud rings his hammer's stroke ; 
And when the crowd may mock, he mounts his ark 
To blend love's warning with a prophet's awe. 

On him whom Heav'n gives o'er 't is sad to gaze. 
Bright health may pencil beauty on his cheek, 
And grace breathe o'er his acts, and he may shine 
A star whose glory wide the nations praise : 
Yet draw the veil ! He walks amid a cloud ; 
And drags a coffin to each scene of joy. 
A mother's tear can bring no answering drop : 
A father's prayer falls back on silenced lips, 
And night's eternal shadow settles round. 

If like a tree stripp'd of its brilliant bloom, 
And black with blasting fire and struck by death, 
Tossing its moaning branches in the gloom, 
One thus foredoom'd, what then a teeming world ! 
Death laughs to hear its song, and lures it on 



134 THE DELUGE. 

To darker woe, and grins where hearthstones blaze. 
As maidens crown the bride, he blasts the flowers, 
And from his cloud, while thunders scare, he cries, 
" Hail, my gay children, hail ! Wave high the torch, 
Swim through the dance, and drink the purple wine ; 
Make bright a world which soon will prove a tomb ; 
Wear garlands gay, and deck your paths to me ! " 

In such a world long did the patriarch toil ; 
None heard beyond his home, and on the stream, 
Wild, turbulent, and dark, roll'd over earth. 
Yet leans he on the hand that made the sun ; 
Faith hears from future years a voice of joy, 
And sees an altar by a rainbow spann'd. 

Behold his work achieved ! As some lone isle 
Heaved up by earthquakes from a tropic deep, 
Lifts high its rocks, and scorns the battling sea, 
Thus that majestic Ark towers o'er the plain, 
And dares from sky and earth their torrent floods. 

Trees which had stood while yet the sun was young, 
And Adam shelter'd with their monarch-boughs, 
That vessel form. Three stories make three halls ; 
Through one large window comes the light of heav'n — 
No need of more when all the sky is cloud — 
No sun, nor moon, nor star to pierce the gloom, 
Whose shadows soon will mantle round a world. 
Perchance bright pendent lamps dispell'd the night ; 
Perchance Jehovah's presence was the day. 



THE DELUGE. 135 

One door was there for all life spared on earth. 
From fires pitch roll'd its smoke, and on each seam 
In ladles pour'd, made black the lofty Ark, 
Bidding defiance to the coming floods ; 
Piled high within, the wealth of summers lies 
To save our world from universal death. 

See near the Ark that pair whence came our race ! 
Mid sadness and despair I hear a cry : 
" Ah ! why this toil ? Why thus wear out thy strength ? 
Why store this Ark, and starve thy wife and sons ? 
They grudge each stroke, amid the scorn of foes ; 
Cease thy vain work — thy silly Ark tear down, 
And use its harvests for thyself and us ! 
Or let yon altar-brand light up its flames, 
That it no more may kindle for us hate ! 
Most vain thy dreams ! Nor bird nor beast will come, 
Self-moved, from distant lands to seek thy Ark." 

A beam of glory gilds o'er Noah's brow ; 
His tone is soft, yet as the trumpet clear : 
" Shall God be mock'd, by whom I dare the world ? 
My work complete, shall I fling off my crown 
Just when its glittering rim comes near my brow ? 
Should I take out my stores, or burn my Ark, 
What shouts of scorn from earth would burst o'er me ! 
Jehovah I will trust while shines His sun ! " 

Lo ! sudden thunders burst out from a wood, 
And roar on roar shakes startled earth and air, 



136 THE DELUGE. 

As two majestic lions stalk in view ! 

When morning's sun first beam'd down on their lair, 

They started from their dens and wander'd round, 

Until, like magnet-isles which vessels draw, 

Th' unconscious Ark attracts the kingly beasts. 

With stately pride the long-maned monster treads, 

His crouching mate submissive at his side. 

New wonders rise. Two giant elephants 
With twisting trunks, and tusks of gleaming white, 
Lift swift on clumsy feet their monstrous bulk ; 
Between their pendent ears no riders sit. 
Where Gunga rolls his wave, and banyans make 
With rooted boughs their dark and pillar'd shade, 
Thence were they moved, till towers the Ark in view. 
A tiger-pair behind their stripes display, 
And graceful leopards show their spotted sides. 
The noble steed that paw'd Arabia's plains, 
And in wide nostrils snuff d the flying sands ; 
Unwieldy behemoth, the frail gazelle, 
Boas that wind with speed their ponderous length, 
All kinds that walk or creep from pole to pole, 
And round the burning circles of the globe — 
Parents of those who roam our second world — 
One vast procession, troop towards the Ark. 

Low down upon the sky, behold two specks, 
That soon with wings appear ! As full-sail'd ships 
That bound before the breeze, those condors cleave 



THE DELUGE. 137 

Aloft the airy deep, then pause, and gaze, 
And drop in slow gyrations on the deck. 
Where now the Andes part the clouds of heav'n, 
They spread their pinions on a mountain-cliff, 
And left their homes to steer sublime their way. 
The monarch-eagle not in circles now 
Towers to the sun, but flies in even course, 
Till on the pitchy roof he rests his feet ; 
The ostrich starting from Sahara's sands, 
Lifts up his form, aud plies his uncouth wings, 
Borne on his lengthy limbs from dreaded death, 
While peacocks drag along their rainbow plumes. 
Birds gay as tropic flowers, or white as snows, 
Of every size and form and wing and hue, 
Fast-flocking fly from all the climes of earth, 
Till day is darken'd with their sounding wings, 
And, cloud on cloud, down settle on the Ark. 

Huge ocean-monsters gambolling on the wave, 
With those in coral depths, and fish that swim 
Majestic streams, or glittering glide in brooks, 
Safe in their watery homes dread not the flood, 
Nor feel the strange attraction lure them on. 

The Ark is fill'd, and Noah cries : " Ascend, 
My wife and sons ! This hour repays our toil ! 
Jehovah praise, whose word is thus proved sure ! 
His love will guide o'er oceans wild with death ! 
Then blow, ye storms, and burst, ye torrent-floods ! 



138 THE DELUGE. 

Flash forth, ye lightnings ! loud, ye thunders, roar ! 
earth, farewell ! Ye hills kiss'd by the sun, 
Ye flowering vales, and sheltering: trees, farewell ! 
Farewell, ye men o'er whom I still weep tears, 
And each small thing I loved on earth, farewell ! 
world where Eden smiled, farewell! farewell!" 

Hand now in hand, the Prophet and his spouse, 
With solemn tread and slow, ascend the Ark ; 
Shem, Ham, and Japheth, follow with their wives. 
Jehovah shuts them in, and bars the door, 
Lest they, with pity weak, may draw the bolt 
And rebels save whom Justice doom'd to death. 

Awe like a midnight settles o'er the world ; 
Pale faces dart amid the gloom, and lips 
Low murmur fear. The mother grasps her child, 
Press'd with convulsive shudders to her breast, 
And looks with frantic gaze into the sky. 
Now shrieks of men and cries of beasts burst out. 
One doer's long howl rose hideous on the wind — 
Yell after yell — till silenced by a blow. 
Groups view the clouds, or start when tempests sweep, 
While conscience wakes, and Noah's warnings burst 
Like thunders from the past, and earth grows still, 
As if to hear her final note of doom. 

The heavens are changed. Clouds piled on clouds rush on, 
Sweepingin mountain-masses o'er the sky, 



THE DELUGE. 139 

Then mingling stand one roof of angry black. 
Storm shrieks to storm, to thunders thunders peal, 
And lightnings blaze, and skies dash torrents down, 
By column'd waters met that spout from earth, 
Till murmuring brooks sweep on resistless floods, 
The valleys fill, and rush along the hills ; 
Earth groans convulsed with pangs, and rivers bear 
The houses down, and flocks and struggling men. 
Wild ocean clamors now to rule the world, 
And shrill despair is heard above the storms. 
Crowds seek the Ark, with glaring eyeballs kneel, 
And, stretching out vain hands, for mercy shriek ; 
Some scale the pitchy sides, but, baffled soon, 
Down from the fatal smoothness drop to die. 
Some ladders lean which envious waves wash o'er. 
Others with ponderous axes cut the wood, 
Till strangling waters stop their useless blows ; 
Some climb the trees, the roofs and towers ascend, 
In frenzy vain rush screaming up the hills. 
Mad floods pursue. The sudden-roaring blast, 
A billow seizing by its crested top, 
Soon dashes down a mountain on their heads. 
Trees, hills are hid. The tall-tower'd city sinks, 
And monsters swim above its ghastly dead ; 
One wretch, the last of earth, a summit scales 
Which looks o'er all the sea, and on its top 
A moment stands, seen in the lightning's glare, 
With streaming hair, and tight-clench'd fists, and brow 
That dares the storm, till billows hurl him off, 



140 THE DELUGE. 

Extorting yells that louder shriek than floods ; 
Then heav'n is all a cloud, and earth a sea ! 

The Ark floats towering o'er the fatal waves, 
And rides above the solitary world ; 
Amid the roar of storms hear Noah's voice : 
" Jehovah praise, whose mercy gave my Ark ! 
Ye floods and tempests, join to sound him thanks ! 
Ye beasts, rejoice, and ye bright tuneful birds, 
Who in the tree-tops sang, or in the clouds, 
As once when glowing morning woke your lays, 
Fill with your sweetest notes my friendly Ark ! 
Praise Him behind your clouds, Sun, Moon, and Stars ! 
Glad Angels, strike your harps and cheer our gloom ! 
Behold my Ark, pledge of the Promised Seed, 
And thrill the heav'n and earth with joyful praise ! " 

While Cherubim admire from hills of life, 
Prom shades of death the Prince of Night surveys. 
With lip of hate, and eye that roll'd in pain 
Yet gleam'd revenge, his words of scorn shook hell : 
" Princes, when burst our chain, and dropp'd our yoke, 
We malice chose for love, and ill for good ; 
Praises to curses turn'd, and bliss to pain. 
Where God would bless we blast, and where He saves 
We counterwork to damn, and build up hell ! 
His Son I would hurl down and take His throne ; 
Nor have I fail'd against Omnipotence : 
I with an apple blasted Eden's bloom, 



THE DELUGE. 141 

And let in death to riot o'er a world ; 

By waters chill'd have millions sought my fire. 

The greater task achieved, the less is sure. 

But eight of earth survive — within an Ark — 

Toss'd on mad waves — a plank 'twixt them and death ! 

Fly ye, and pierce that hulk ! Shake Noah's faith ! 

Scale the black cloud and hurl the lightning bolt ! 

Dash oceans down, and let wild waters in ! 

Let whirlwinds sweep the wreck beneath the sea ! 

Earth then is mine, when ends the woman's seed ! 

Oh, yet, unbruis'd, refulgent to the stars 

My head shall tower, and wear Jehovah's crown ! " 

Forthwith their rushing pinions darken hell, 
And they shriek round the Ark. On nimble feet 
With aiding wings some climb and mount the wave 
To dash it on the deck, while lightnings blaze, 
And demons yell, and thunders drown the storm. 
Destruction laughs, and Death rides o'er our world. 

Thus Noah's faith allays each rising fear : 
" When sin first blasted earth, Jehovah said, 
1 The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head. ' 
If sinks my groaning Ark, that promise fails, 
And Hell defeats her Lord, which cannot be. 
No plank shall start ! no seam shall drink the flood ! 
The Hand that made the earth clasps round my Ark, 
That from my loins may spring the Hope of man ! 
I dare thee, Hell ! My God will guard His own ! " 



142 THE DELUGE. 

Jehovah pleased beholds His servant's faith. 
Bow'd now in heav'n each knee and hush'd each song, 
A Voice Omnipotent the silence breaks : 
" My angels, see on earth that gloom of clouds 
Where madden'd fiends hurl round wild waves and 

storms, 
And Death rides on the blast o'er Noah's Ark ! 
My servant's faith has stood the shock of Hell ! 
Then drive those devils back, and calm the sea ! 
My Word shall stand ! Yon Ark shall save the world ! " 



Swift down from heav'n they drop like falling stars ; 
And, pierced the dreadful gloom that roofs the world, 
They light upon the waves, and range for war. 
Clothed with a morning cloud, amid the gloom 
Their Leader stood, bright as a sun his helm 
That turn'd to stars the drops upon his wings. 
His right hand grasp'd a sword, his left a trump 
Of glittering gold whose blast oft peal'd o'er heav'n ; 
Press'd to his lips, its music thrills the earth, 
And makes the tempests still ; waves bow their heads, 
The clouds take wing, the thunders sink away, 
And skies are bright, and the wide ocean calm. 
Scared back to hell, no devil battle dares : 
With shouts of joy those angels spring through air, 
Outstrip the light, and reach Jehovah's throne. 

Soon dried the sea, the Ark rests on the earth, 
A silent witness of Eternal Love. 



THE DELUGE. 143 

An angel draws the bolt, and with glad eyes 
The grateful group look forth to view the world. 
Hear Noah's voice : " God, my work is done ! 
First be to Thee my thanks, then Earth I hail ! 
Welcome, ye naked hills, and flowerless vales, 
And mountains bleak, aod bare and ragged trees ! 
Ye streams and oceans, let me hail you all ! 
Welcome, thou sun, bright morn, and gentle eve ! 
Spring swift, ye flowers ! Ye roses, lift your heads ! 
Ye lilies, scent, and daisies deck the fields ! 
Come forth, thou silent grass, and robe the world ! 
Ye leaves, appear ! Ye glowing blossoms, burst 
And beauty flush o'er ocean-blasted lands ! 
Oh, quick, ye harvests wave, and fruits depend, 
And every varied plant adorn the scene ! 
Beasts, seek your fields, and, birds, cheer earth with song ! 
And go ye forth, my sons, to fill the world ! 
Plough the rich soil, and busy cities build ; 
In social commerce join sea-sever'd shores, 
And make this dreary waste bloom o'er with joy ! " 

Hand now in hand come forth the aged pair ; 
The children next, who kneel around their sire, 
And kiss the earth, and fill the air with praise. 
The beasts pass out and darken o'er the plain, 
And birds on rushing wings fly over heav'n, 
Until that Ark stands silent as a hill. 

See Noah and his sons, who gather stones 
Eoll'd by the floods, and a square altar build ! 



144 THE DELUGE. 

The wood is cleft, the sacrifice is slain, 
And fragrant clouds their odors waft to God, 
Whose voice the stillness breaks of that young world : 
" No more for sin shall earth be cursed by floods ; 
Seed-time and harvest hence, with cold and heat, 
And day and night remain secure for man." 



While all around the blazing altar kneel, 
A sudden radiance, trembling from the vale, 
Kests on the mountain's brow, and climbs the skies, 
Then bending down in vast majestic curve, 
With quivering glories paints the ocean's wave, — 
Eternal token of Jehovah's Love. 









THE PERIODS. 

Canto I. 
THE DAY. 

MORNING. 

THE twilight dim 
Lines ocean's brim ; 
And stars from sight 
Hide in the light 
Whose burnish' d gold 
O'er heav'n is rolled. 
As the sun above the sky 
Lifts his royal head on high, 
His beamy way 
Where splendors play, 
With naming ray 
Begins the day. 
While the painted vapors fly 
Like wild phantoms o'er the eye, 
10 



146 THE PERIODS. 

And the dew-drops glow 
On the flowers bent low, 
And the sunbeams flash, 
Where the rivers dash, 
Hark ! the groves warble loud 
To the lark in his cloud, 
As rosy Morning's voice 
Bids waking earth rejoice ! 



NOON. 

That monarch-sun, 
His course half done, 
Sits throned in light 
On the heav'n's height ; 
A crown of beams about his head ; 
Bright robes of glory round him spread ! 
Now the shadows grow small 
From the quivering wall, 
And field and hill 
With heat are still. 
How the pulse of the world beats exhausted and low ! 
How the breath of the world comes hard, panting, and slow ! 
How the face of the world is one broad, burning glow, 
While the day in his ire, 
Like a furnace of fire, 
Scorches Noon. 



THE PERIODS. 147 

EVENING. 

On the earth a holy hush, 
O'er the sky a purple blush, 

Soft Eve proclaim. 
Down the golden gates of day 
Sinks the sun with slanted ray. 

From yon wooded hill, 

In the twilight still, 

Cries the whip-poor-will ; 
The night-owl, in his oak, 
Hears the frog's solemn croak ; 
The crickets chirp, the beetles drum, 
And earth is lull'd with insect hum. 
As shadows deeper grow, 
And the winds whisper low, 
Hush ! with that fading light 
Eve sinks away in night. 

MIDNIGHT. 

The silent stars are in the sky, 
The moon amid her clouds rides high, 
Whose quivering light, soft, bright, and still, 
Silvers the vale and bathes the hill. 

Comes through the dark 

The night-dog's bark, 

While mortals sleep 

In slumbers deep. 



148 THE PERIODS. 

The fox steals forth with stealthy tread ; 
Beneath his wing the fowl's dull head. 
Where rivers flow, 
The mists creep low ; 
Now dreams invade 
From realms of shade, 
As Midnight's awful shadow has its birth 
To wrap like death in deeper sleep the earth. 



Canto II. 
THE YEAR. 

SPRING. 

The glowing sun now warms the breeze, 
And darts his virtues through the trees 
To make life-currents rise, 
Which, working in the dark, 
Expand the swelling bark 
'Neath ever-milder skies. 
Heralds of the new-born year, 
See the infant buds appear ! 
Waked from the dead 
The young leaves spread, 
Till the forests of the world 
Stand with banners green unfurl'd. 



THE PERIODS. 149 

Broke Nature's sleep, 
The grasses creep, 
Slow, bright, and still, 
From vale to hill, 
Till green robes earth with its soft dye 
As tints sweet blue the circling sky, — 
Hues mix'd by God to please man's eye. 
Soon born the birds of every wing, 
Which hop, or fly, or coo, or sing ! 
The streams unbound 
A voice have found, 
And shout around 
With joyous sound, 
We are free 
In our glee. 
Hark ! blust'ring March subdued is whispering low, 
Then show'ring clouds float tinged with April's glow ; 
And sinking rivers glide with murmuring flow. 
Flush'd with a purple ray, 
Crown'd by the smiling May, 
Where morning clouds in golden masses lie, 
Like angels at the portals of the sky, 
Beneath a rainbow's arch of splendid dye 
Whose painted glories quiver in the eye — 
Brightest blossoms thy zone, 
Sweetest rosebuds thy throne, 
In a car of flowers 
Just wet with the showers, 
And drawn by wing'd Hours. 
Ride on, thou blushing Spring ! 



150 THE PERIODS. 



SUMMER. 



Sprinkled with dews and showers, and warm'd by noon 
To glory bursts the rose of fragrant June ! 
On the trees the; leaves still denser grow, 
And their silent shadows darker throw 
In the longer day's intenser glow, 

While a wide-quivering haze, 
Ascending in the blaze 
As brighter burn the rays, 
Floats dream-like o'er the gaze. 
Not wildly brawl the brooks, swift, wide, and deep, 
But painfully slow, faint-murmuring creep ; 
Majestic rivers shrunken in the sun, 
Leave glaring rocks where waters cool have run. 
With dozing eye and panting side 
The ox stands meekly in the tide ; 
Faint, with necks along the ground, 
Where noon-shadows lie around 
The quick-breathing sheep are found. 
Low as some distance-muffled drum 
The drooping city's wearied hum ; 
Fierce heat has hush'd the field's gay choirs, 
And shrinking from day's scorching fires 
Far in the wood the bird retires 
Where scarce a glancing wing aspires. 
Deep the beast in his den 
Pants till night comes again ; 
Without, the mountain bare 
Glows in the burning air. 



THE PERIODS. 151 

Nor now the cheery song 
As the reaper stalks along ; 
Nor now shakes down the dew 
As cuts the sickle through ; 
Nor now, as in the morn, 
Winds loud the harvest horn : 
But like a furnace flames the sky, 
And looks the sun with fiercer eye, 
And lurid clouds float glaring by. 
Where late o'er standing grain the sportive breezes play'd, 
Now resting reapers dozing in the lazy shade 
Amid the bearded sheaves of wheatcocks freshly made, 
And all the yellow wealth of harvests prostrate laid 
Show brilliant Summer's reign. 



AUTUMN. 

High-piled the gather'd sheaves ! 

A yellow tinge in leaves ! 

Steals o'er the peach its flush 

Deep as the evening's blush ! 

And when the leaves unfold 

Ked apples gleam o'er gold, 

While on the tangled vine 

The smooth, round melons shine. 
Then peeping into view when lifting breezes blow, 
Broad, mantling clusters on the trellis'd vineyards glow, 
Whose streaming currents soon shall gush in purple flow. 



152 THE PERIODS. 

Up, with his face of blood, 
Slow o'er the deep-dyed flood, 
The sun, despoil'd of rays, 
Mounts, glaring through the haze ; 
Then round with flaming glow 
Burns o'er the world below, 
Till in his evening bed 
He dips his globe of red. 
Gone from the hazy air the perish'd insect's hum, 
Dim phantom-pheasants in the thickets lurking come, 
And beat the mossy log with whirring thunder-drum. 
Hark ! from his rail 
On morning's gale 
The whistling quail ! 
With leg and tail uprear'd mid leaves crisp'd brown, 
The squirrel gay his tinkling nut drops down ; 
And chattering swallows circling on the wing, 
Debate long exile till the smile of spring, 
While high the clanging wild geese floating fly, 
In long-wedged squadrons through the parted sky, 
Now here and there amid the green 
A changed September leaf is seen, 
Which in eddying circles wheels 
When keen October's breath it feels, 
Or, clinging yet to its frail stem 
Until it flashes like a gem, 
Displays in morning's fresh'ning dew, 
Its yellow tinge and scarlet hue ; 
And then, before November storms, 
And blasting frost the world deforms, 






THE PERIODS. 153 

Fields, orchards, forests, lawns, hills, plains, and moun- 
tains hold, 
Their mingling glories to the redden'd sun unfold, 
Like crimson billows naming o'er a sea of gold, 
Or Heav'n's effulgent scenes to mortal gaze unroll'd, 
And gorgeous Autumn paint. 



WINTEK. 

Hark ! shrill the blast 

Fierce-sweeping past ! 

As wild it blows, 

The shutter close ! 

Quick ! stir the fire 

Till flames aspire ; 

The lamp then light, 

Which, shining bright, 

Dark on the wall 

Makes shadows fall ! 
The soften'd brilliance of the room 
Gilds age's brow and childhood's bloom ; 
And curling ringlets you behold, 
Hide infant smiles with waving gold. 
Without, the tempest howls ; 
Without, the black sky scowls ; 
Without, the beggar's form 
Is shivering in the storm, 
And from the winter-sea 
Shrieks out wild agony. 



154 THE PERIODS. 

The furious winds subdued, huge leaden masses lie 

Like giant spectres dimly on the silenced sky ; 

Then dusky clouds, weigh'd down, the noiseless scene 

bend o'er, 
And the still heav'n and earth seem nearer than before. 
Now dropping through the air 
A flake melts on your hair ; 
Lo ! millions, soft and light, 
Float on the wavering sight ; 
The feathery whiteness still 
Descends on vale and hill ; 
Exhausted grows the cloud, 
And earth lies in her shroud ; 
Fields, forests, valleys, mountains, towns, together show 
One vast, interminable spectacle of snow. 
Down the steep hill-side 
See the brave boy glide ! 
While glad voices sing, 
Sleigh-bells merry ring ! 
Circling o'er the sky 
Let the snow-balls fly ! 
For the children's sport 
Eise the wall and fort, 
Till a warmer sun 
Melts the scene of fun. 
As the longer nights grow cold, 
Tapering icicles behold, 
With their silver and their gold ! 
At opening day, 
Where sunbeams play, 



THE PERIODS. 155 

The icy trees 
Flash in the breeze — 
On leaf and stem 
The quivering gem ! 
Now the stars shine small and bright 
In the stillness of the night; 
Now each captive stream around 
Stands firm in ice-chains bound, 
And skaters glance and fly- 
Beneath the moonlit sky, 
And frost and snow and ice on vale and hill and plain 
Show Winter has begun his cold, remorseless reign. 



Canto III. 

LIFE. 

INFANCY. 

Deep in a cavern of the earth 
My little stream has mystic birth ; 
Then flows to sight 
In morning light 
Where leaning trees with arching tops ascend, 
And o'er a mossy rock dim shadows blend 
With perfume 
In the gloom. 



156 



THE PERIODS. 



On waters bright to float 
Emerging comes my boat ; 
Beneath a smiling sky- 
Mid roses soft I lie, 
While wings of Hours waft by. 
Gay flowers on either side the waters kiss, 
Whose quiet shadows sleep, the types of bliss, 
Nor gentle clouds that sail above I miss, 
Too fair in beauty for a world like this. 
With form most bright, 
And brow of light 
To calm my fears, 
An angel steers. 
As with dimpled cheeks I glide 
Where soft-rippling flows the tide, 
And sweet-scented breezes chide, 
Lo ! heav'n's seraph-bands preside, 
Waving their golden wings while childhood pure and bright, 
A brilliant morning vision, floats across the sight. 



YOUTH. 



Brighter the roses flush, 
Deeper the cloud's red blush, 
As I glide 
O'er the tide ! 
Let the angel on the land 
In his foolish sorrow stand, 
Since I need no more his hand ! 



THE PERIODS. 157 

Adieu, every fear ! 

My own boat I steer. 

Faster ! ye Hours ! 

Strain all your powers ! 
Hands try ! 
Feet ply ! 
Wings vie 
Till we fly, till we fly 
Like clouds upon the sky ! 

At my boat of oak 

Let age snarl and eroak ! 

Against the shore 

Let waters roar ! 

With wild turmoil 

Let whirlpools boil, 

And demons stare 

In hellish glare ! 
See, smiling far above 
Are Fame and Wealth and Love ! 

Scorning measure, 

Brilliant Pleasure, 
Her temple in the sky 
With its dome bright and high, 
A glory in the eye, 

Builds for Youth ! 



158 THE PERIODS: 



MANHOOD. 



A wildering glare 

Blinds in the air ! 
See ! bright the lightnings flash ! 
Hark ! wild the thunders crash ! 
How the billows break and dash ! 
And the earth wears a shroud, 
And the heaven seems a cloud ; 

No angel guide 

Smiles at my side. 
But, avaunt, grim Despair ! 
Each peril I can dare, 
And my life-burden bear. 
Let torrents roar and rave, 
The manly and the brave 
Will ride upon the wave ! 
Ye lightnings, swifter fly ! 
Storms, fiercer rend the sky ! 
Rush, waters, wilder by ! 
Your fury I defy ! 

If Ruin's shock 

Creation rock, 
While helps its own right hand, 
In God will Manhood stand ! 



THE PERIODS. 159 



AGE. 



Life's fires have ceased to glow, 
My feeble pulse beats slow, 
This silver'd head bows low. 
My shatter'd boat 
Just keeps afloat. 
But oh ! Life's Angel sheds on me his ray, 
And steers my Age to his immortal day. 
While dark round me 
Bolls thy far sea, 
Eternity, 
Yet down from yon bright sky, 
Through darkness thick and high, 
Heav'n pours a blaze of beams 
Till earth a glory seems. 
A Form Divine I see round which the angels bend, 
Who oft to me on waving wings in light descend. 
And soon I '11 soar with them above, 
Where Age shall turn immortal youth 
As it beholds Incarnate Truth, 
And Life be everlasting Love. 



o 



SONG OF THE LIGHT. 



H, long did Old Night rule o'er all in his might, 



Sitting black as the robe of his gloom, 
And the atoms did play, in their wild, wild way, 

Yet of life e'en as void as the tomb ; 
Then God said, " Let light be ! " and forth I flash'd free 

In my glory forever to shine, 
And 't is life I will bring, and joy on my wing 

While the robe of Creation is mine. 

My dazzle of rays hides the Ancient of Days 

In the clouds that encircle his throne ! 
My mantle of beams in its brilliance of gleams 

But by me could be woven alone. 
Each seraph must shine in my halo divine, 

And I bind him around with his robe ; 
Nor shimmers a star, nor a sun flames afar 

Unless I will engirdle his globe. 

And the rainbow I form and paint on the storm, 

And I curve round each glittering hue, 
As the Maker Divine refulgent doth shine 

'Neath the circle which I o'er Him threw. 



SONG OF THE LIGHT. 161 

Lo ! wide nature I fill with joy's keenest thrill, 

And the songs of the angels inspire, 
Nor a harp can be found, nor a lip to give sound, 

If my beam do not kindle the fire. 

Through these atoms so dark, when flashes my spark, 

Lo, a thousand round worlds shall be born, 
To sweep and to turn, and to beam and to burn, 

And I '11 cheer them with even and morn. 
1 11 see this wide gloom ever blossom and bloom, 

When my suns in their glory arise, 
And the light here shall beam, and life here shall teem, 

Where eternal the smile of the skies. 



11 



MARYLAND: 

A CENTENNIAL POEM. 

OH, Maryland, my heart returns to thee, 
So bright, so fair from mountain to the sea ! 
These eyes have seen thy beauties from the shore 
Where meets broad Chesapeake wild ocean's roar, 
To where thy graceful summits lift their green, 
And Oakland sits enthroned, a mountain-queen. 
O'er many lands I 've roam'd, but which can show 
Such varied charms as in thy daughters glow ? 
And brave and courteous sons thy soil now grace, 
As when colonial manners ruled the place, 
And Washington's majestic form was seen, — 
Incarnate Freedom, moving o'er our green. 
Beneath yon tree, in hoary centuries old, 
The victor stood whom ages will behold ; 
Sublime our State House when his sword laid down 
Proclaim'd a country loved more than a crown ! 
Nor, Maryland, in thee from mount to bay 
A lovelier spot than greets our eyes to-day ! 
Yon ivied walls ; yon poplar's lofty brow ; 
Our college green in summer sunlight now ; 



A CENTENNIAL POEM. 163 

This pillar'd hall ; above, the time-worn dome, — 
Make our St. John's beloved as we love home. 
A Hundred Years now crown its honor'd head ! 
A Hundred Years ! what memories from the dead ! 
What fears, what hopes, what toils have mark'd this 

scene ! 
What names we love are in our hearts kept green ! 
McDowell learn'd here first the mantle wore ; 
Here Pinkney, Webster's peer, gain'd classic store ; 
Here caught the fire of eloquence that burn'd 
And law's dry rugged truths to beauty turn'd ; 
Then left to one his genius and his name 
Beneath whose Bishop's robe glow'd friendship's flame, 
Whose life of faith, whose word of power and love 
Approved the man anointed from above. 
Where'er our flag shall float, high o'er the mast 
While battle thunders 'mid the ocean's blast, 
Or, if on land its brilliant colors fly 
O'er patriot warriors taught for it to die, 
In peace, in war, above the sailor's grave, 
Where'er its banner'd glories flash and wave, 
Immortal there, Key, shall live thy name, 
And our St. John's, thy mother, share thy fame. 
But I must pause, since thy illustrious men 
Need not the pictures of a poet's pen ; 
They grace the Senate, in the Pulpit shine, 
Adorn the Bar, and lead in Mart and Mine, 
By Science cure, or ease the pangs of death, 
While whispering hope with love's inspiring breath. 



164 MARYLAND: 

Always, St. John's, they grateful turn to thee, 

As turns a son to home where'er he be. 

Such sober thoughts we leave in pause awhile ; 

We change our theme and dare the cynic's smile. 

We sing of Brass, whose glitter on man's breast 

Makes woman's bosom throb with wild unrest, 

And hence our Navy, I 'm in whispers told, 

With tinsel wins those hearts more prized than gold. 

Behind her fan I see the maiden glance ; 

I see her whirl, clasp'd in the dizzy dance ; 

She reads her stars, and with an artless joy 

An Admir'l weds, foreshadow'd in a boy. 

Long o'er Life's seas may they together float ! 

He wears the title, she commands the boat ; 

He sounds the trumpet, she tells when to blow ; 

He grasps the helm, she bids him where to go. 

When flies the ball across our college field, 

By foot or bat, St. John's will never yield ; 

She takes the laurel from yon Naval brows, 

And her own children with the crown endows. 

Thus, Maryland, thou dost bring down the pride 

Of ocean-warriors conquering all beside ; 

And yet, superior thus by Nature's hand, 

Thou hast made void an end by Nature plann'd, 

And dwarf d our College, as we soon will show ; 

Despoil' d our flower of its centennial glow. 

Our proof is near, and to its light we turn ; 

Hence o'er our future may new splendors burn ! 



A CENTENNIAL POEM. 165 

Where'er our banner streams above the world, 

Mid what wild seas or wars it flies unfurl' d, 

There sailor-manhood, taught the waves to rule, 

Bepays investment in our Naval School. 

These young cadets who flirt and dance and joke 

Turn heroes mid red battle's flame and smoke, 

Fight with train'd skill, and if they fall to die 

In triumph smile as meet our stars the eye. 

How grand the proof on far Samoa's shore 

When burst across the deep that tempest's roar ! 

See Mullan, who, to save his ship from wreck, 

Dared ocean's tumbling ruin on his deck ! 

Groans the Vandalia in a death-dark wave 

That hurls her martyr-captain to his grave ! 

Heroic Farquhar bids our banner fly 

Out in the storm that mingles sea and sky, 

And, as the maniac lightnings flame and glare, 

Triumphant music thrills the thundering air ! 

Hark ! Cheers urge on brave Britons thro' the gloom, 

Heard o'er the whirlwind's shriek, the billow's boom ! 

The Trenton and Vandalia crash and shock, 

And then with arms of sisters interlock. 

That flag, that strain, those shouts wake life again 

Where mast and shroud are clutch'd by clinging men. 

'T was thy song's music, Key, inspired with power 

When ocean-demons raged and ruled the hour, 

And, Maryland, thy spell was felt e'en there, 

Since 't was thy son with hope lit that despair. 



166 MARYLAND: 

Who now will those Samoans dare to grind, 

Braving both storm and wave their foes to find ? 

On breast and shoulder those they clasp'd and bore 

Whose scorn and bullets they had felt before. 

Samoa's Isles, o'er you our Flag shall fly, 

And the grim tyrants of the earth defy ! 

Now let me come to my appointed task, 

And here a few centennial questions ask ! 

Love for our college glows ! Why then so poor ? 

Say, why not yet our name and work secure ? 

The seed was dropped two centuries ago : 

A soil so rich and yet a growth so slow ! 

In dim colonial times a Hundred Years 

Mid toil and battle, poverty and tears, 

Had ample treasure for our college piled ; 

Hope waved her wings and o'er our future smiled. 

The people's gifts accepted by the State 

A promise gave of glory, bright and great. 

Yes, Maryland, thy honor, hand, and name, 

Thy seal, thy law, thy pledge, thy truth, thy fame, 

All to a Trust before the world were given ; 

And to St. John's, thy child, thou bound by Heaven. 

Who were the men who gave their work and gold ? 

A list more brilliant where can earth unfold ? 

On Freedom's charter read their names in light ! 

For Freedom's battles they left here to fight ; 

By pen and sword, by word and blood they show'd 

What spark immortal in their bosoms glow'd. 



A CENTENNIAL POEM. 167 

The State took gifts of revolution-sires 

With halos crown'd flash'd back from war's red fires. 

A few years pass ! Lo, party storms rage high ! 

Wild Passion swept with clouds our country's sky ! 

In our old Hall, for which I love to speak, 

A college boy, perhaps in college freak, 

A tempest waked, — a word of his hurl'd o'er 

All that our hero-fathers did before. 

By a mere lad enraged the State House frown'd, 

And struck a daughter staggering to the ground ; 

Annull'd her gifts and flung her on the wild, 

A bleeding, orphan'd, lone and starveling child. 

For thirty years she struggled on the earth 

By the stern mother left who gave her birth, 

And, beggar'd first, was forced by Want to sign 

A compact hard and vested rights resign. 

The deed was null ! Never can mother bring 

Her flesh to pangs, then rob the helpless thing. 

No ! Maryland ! St. John's avoids the deed ! 

To that mean pact St. John's here " No " doth plead ! 

Those patriot-gifts, with interest, all are ours ; 

From them the grandeur of our college towers. 

We claim a million by eternal right ! 

A million can be won by faith and fight ; 

Not to the courts, but people, our appeal : 

Sure, they the wounds their servants gave will heal. 

Now know why Yale and Harvard in the race 

Have left St. John's to creep with sluggard pace ; 



168 MARYLAND: 

Why Princeton and Columbia crowd their halls 

While we have round us dim and time-stained walls, 

Yet feel like heroes with a battle-scar 

Proud of the wound and limp of noble war. 

Yes, Maryland, we come to ask thee now 

Not with a beggar's whine and abject brow 

For the sole sum that thou didst then withhold 

And paltry interest paid in grudging gold ; 

We stand on right ; we look thee in the face ; 

We cry, " Wipe out the blot of this disgrace ! " 

Lift us now up to that illustrious height 

Where we had shone in this centennial light ! 

See the cold father who his son denies 

The kindly nurtures which love's heart supplies ! 

That boy to manhood grows, marr'd flesh and soul ; 

The stamp forever on the shrivell'd scroll ; 

No gold can paint the cheek with blushing health ; 

That shrunken form beyond the power of wealth ; 

Thus imbeciled, what treasure e'er can buy 

Strength for the reason, brilliance for the eye ? 

A manhood's blight instead of manhood's prime 

Is on that father's soul a cloud and crime. 

Say, money cannot now the sin repair, 

Shall then that father be exempt from care ? 

Do nothing since he cannot do the whole, 

Or mock his human ruin with a dole ? 

No ! that hard father shall do all he can ; 

The boy he blighted comfort in the man. 



A CENTENNIAL POEM. 169 

Oh, Maryland, these simple truths apply ! 

Soon wall and tower will brighten on our sky ; 

Soon on our shelves the piling volumes grow ; 

The spoils of science we '11 be proud to show ; 

New telescopes across the stars shall sweep, 

New worlds shall glitter thro' th' aerial deep ; 

Our honor'd halls shall swarm with noble youth 

Panting to drink the life of living Truth ; 

Nor Yale nor Harvard shall exceed our fame, 

While glory brightens round, St. John's, thy name ! 

Why should our youth on others spend their gold ? 

Why bear abroad the treasures we should hold ? 

Why bloat old colleges with needless wealth 

And from our own keep back the bloom of health ? 

Why give we other States our Sons to guide, 

Who trained at home would make our State their pride ? 

Stop, Maryland, this drain of thine own blood 

For other lives in one centennial flood ! 

Sons of St. John's ! Your Alma Mater cries ! 

Kneel at her altars ! Kneel and never rise 

Till each a vow has burn'd into his soul 

This dark centennial cloud away to roll ! 

And you, ye daughters of this beauteous place, 

Ye, who o'er life can shed such light of grace, 

Give us your smiles, your words and looks of cheer, 

And brilliant triumph yet awaits us here. 

Oh, Press, for mighty aid we ask thee now, 

Fire in thy glance and lightning on thy brow ! 



170 MARYLAND. 

Thy pens of flame must light us on our way ; 
Thy spell be felt for us from peak to bay ! 
The Bar, the Pulpit, and each State-House Hall, 
May eloquence of truth inspire you all ! 
Him honor'd at our helm may wisdom guide, 
And all the noble helpers at his side ! 
But last and chief our Trustees we invoke 
By all their sires and grandsires did and spoke. 
Hark ! from the grave the voice of those I hear 
Who left this work for an immortal sphere. 
I see their forms ! Each reverend face behold ! 
Back from the past its shadows are unroll'd ! 
Your fathers cry, all eloquent in death ! 
The sounds I catch as if from life's last breath : 
" Sons, at these altars bend in covenant now ; 
Make one true, strong, and all uniting vow, 
To work and wait, to give and pray and fight, 
Till Justice crowns St. John's with her own right ! 



THE PHOTOGRAPH. 

AS you toss on your bed, what strange images roll 
And chase, -each the other, so grotesque o'er the soul ! 
Oh ! my fancies were queer, from my home far away, 
And half robbing the night to make plans for the day, 
Since I could not get rid of the thought for my life, 
How convenient a thing is a Photograph Wife ! 
See the eye and the face, and the form and attire, 
With those touches of taste man was made to admire ; 
Muff, hat, glove, and kerchief, all arranged for the fun, 
And as anxious as madam to smile to the sun ! 
But no poutings, nor scoldings, nor feminine frown, 
Like a moon in a cloud when the sun has gone down. 
Take her gently, — kiss the lip, — look into the face 
As more sweetly she smiles than a rose in a vase ! 
Or would she take leave ? and must we send her away ? 
Then no trunks are to pack and no fare-bills to pay. 
Just three cents will convey her from Texas to Maine ; 
Just three cents bring her back, if she wishes, again ; 
All done in a minute, — like the flash of a rocket, — 
Wife leaps from the mail-box and sleeps in your pocket. 
Also, Photograph Children, — they '11 answer well too, — 
No combing, nor dressing, nor expense for a shoe ; 
No romping and bawling, and fighting and mussing ; 
No turning and twisting, and fixing and fussing ; 



172 THE PHOTOGRAPH. 

Nor a thought for the future, nor a tear for the past, 

Sweet and gentle and good, and, besides, it will last : 

Not like some young storm of Spring that sleeps in the sky, 

But soon bursts into showers with a bang and a cry. 

Indeed, such were my thoughts — I ask pardon of all — 

These queer pranks of the mind will not stop at our call. 

Look again at the Picture ! no soul brightens there, 

'T is only a shadow unsubstantial as air ; 

A few fading lines which the sun in his play 

On the paper has kiss'd with a frolicsome ray, 

And that warmth of the lip and that fire of the eye, 

And that flash of the soul like a gleam of the sky, 

That soft tone of kindness when love breathes in the face, 

And those wifely attentions bestow'd with such grace ; 

The low tender whispers far away from the crowd, 

When Eve peeps with her star through the rift of the cloud ; 

And the romp and the chess and the dolls and the fun, 

And the shout and the skates and the sleds and the run, 

With all that is bright and sweet and lovely in home, 

By our mem'ry made heav'n when far exiles we roam — 

Oh yes, give me all — all — trouble, children, and wife ; 

Take the smile from my lip, take the blood from my life, 

But, oh, leave those I love in Thy goodness, my God, 

Who, if smitten by Thee, will yet bow to Thy rod ! 

Yes ! when Death strikes one down, and we follow the bier, 

As we drop on the grave the soft light of a tear, 

We will look in the hope of a home to the skies, 

Where the eye never weeps and the heart never sighs. 






PAUL PARSON. 

WHEEE Alleghany's peaks aspire, 
Now bathed in evening's crimson fire, 
Now touch'd with morning's golden glow, 
Paul Parson on his mule would go. 

Long, slender, pale, and clothed in black, 
Paul straddled o'er the creature's back ; 
Then left his inn with bow and smile, 
And canter'd on a pleasant mile. 

Behold him go through town and bridge, 
Wind round the vale and mount the ridge, 
Dashing so proudly on his way, 
Like some gay knight of ancient lay ! 

But lo ! the mule, with roguish leer, 
Arrests this glory's bright career, 
Plants down his legs, stiff as the dead, 
To tumble Parson o'er his head. 

Paul bawls and pulls and beats and kicks, — 
He just as well might pound on bricks ; 
He jerks the rein, he whacks the face, 
But stubbornness still keeps its place. 



174 PAUL PARSON. 

Now in a moment, quick as light, 

Like some wild deer winged on by fright, 

See, flashing, dashing, here and there, 

Paul's long thin shanks sweep through the air ! 

From stirrups loosed, Paul's dangling legs ' 
Bob to and fro like wooden pegs, 
While thumping, bumping, on he goes, 
With outstretch'd arms and upturn' d nose. 

i 

His form bent forward as he flies, 
And starting from his head two eyes, 
With two coat-tails outstreaming wide, 
Paul fears the dust will mar his pride. 

Then after five swift-glancing miles, 

A quiet nestling village smiles, 

Where the tired mule with quivering breast, 

Stops in the street to take his rest. 

Doors open fly, up windows rise, 
Shop, store, and bar-room furnish eyes, 
Till dark with heads the town appears, 
While Gossip laughs at Parson's tears. 

Back goes the mule, and back, and back ; 
Whack Parson's whip, and whack, and whack ! 
Till he dismounts, with weary feet, 
To lead the beast along the street. 



PAUL PARSON. 175 

Muse, shall I sing how Parson ask'd 

Help from a woman as he pass'd ? 

How to a fence, the mule possess'd, 

Leaning his weight, Paul's long limb press'd ? 

As evening's shades fall on the plain 
Comes through the calm the bull-frog's strain ; 
As evening's star looks through the cloud, 
More loud the croakers, and more loud. 

But when o'er heav'n night's curtains roll, 
New courage lights our hero's soul ; 
High, strong resolves inflame his head, 
And victory hovers round his bed. 

Now, as the morning tints the sky, 
Paul, mounted, smiles, and says, " Good-by ! " 
But scarce his farewell reach'd his host 
When stopp'd the mule, fix'd as a post. 

Again he flies with whip and spur ; 
Behind his heels each village cur, 
Till on his path of beams the sun 
One half his splendid course had run. 

Ah ! wedged between two walls, crack ! crack ! 
A shiver'd window strews Paul's back ; 
The damage, too, his purse must pay 
Before he can go on his way. 



176 PAUL PARSON. 

While yet the sun with cloudless beam 
Glows over Alleghany's stream, 
Kittaning saw Paul's image fall 
On blazing street and quivering wall. 

No conqueror, when his plume may wave 
Where battling hosts have found a grave, 
More proud than Parson when that mule, 
Submissive, show'd that man will rule. 



the hills; 

I WALK upon the Hills. The Autumn's smoke 
Beneath curtains the vale ; not only scenes, 
But sounds are mellow'd in the haze. The corn, 
Yellow and full, torn from its wither'd stalk 
Without a crackling sharpness, on the ear 
Soft rustles. Half hid by elms, th' ancient mill, 
Gigantic in the mist, and spectre-like 
And dim, hushing its huge ponderous wheel, 
Now rumbles in the vapory distance. 
Loud Industry its energy subdues, 
Made gentle by the spirit of the day, 
And aloft sends round sweet mingling murmurs. 
The axe — no more with quick successive strokes 
Piercing the ear — gives forth a lingering sound ; 
The far flail muffles its thunders, beating 
Heavily as that scared pheasant's doubtful wing. 
The shrieking train across the rattling bridge, 
Whirling with breath of smoke and eye of flame, 
Swift as a rushing tempest, fills the vales 
With gentle sounds as of a monster tamed. 
Why from you, ye Hills, but echoes waked ? 
Why on you no murmuring fields with grains 
Made golden by the sun ? Say, why upon 

12 



178 THE HILLS. 

Your breasts no orchards drop their autumn fruits, 

Or vineyards show their clusters to the day ? 

Why do these hamlets gleam, these cities lift, 

Lofty and bright, their spires alone from vales ? 

O'er your ribb'd sides Art rears no monuments, 

And Traffic wakes no hum. Tis yours to stand 

Sublime but desolate. 'T is yours, ye Hills ! 

To wreathe your cliffs with mists that feed the springs, 

And catch the clouds, gigantic as yourselves, 

As comes their fleecy vastness from the sea 

To robe your forms, and crown your tops with snows, 

And pour enriching rivers o'er the world. 

Your rocks, ye Hills ! the busy cities build ; 

The stately shaft from you, and graceful arch, 

And circling dome, and those majestic shapes 

Where sacred Art immortal virtue shrines. 

From you the navies vast that float the seas, 

And bear their conquering thunders round the world. 

Ye see the empires rise, ye see them fall, 

While ye eternal stand. And you, ye Hills ! 

Bold guardians ever rise of Liberty. 

She lives amid your cliffs, she breathes your airs, 

She leaps your crags, until her arm can bear 

Aloft the banner of triumphant states. 

Our souls with you soar to sublimity. 

Great Hills! ye too Jehovah's altars stand, 

Kear'd up by Him above the sordid earth 

That man may kneel and worship nearer Heav'n ! 



THE CLOUDS. 

HOW beautiful the Clouds ! From night distill'd, 
Their stealthy mists creep low along the fields, 
Hang o'er the streams, or climbing round the hills 
Spread an expanse inimitably white, 
With trees like islands lifting through their green, 
Touch'd by the gold and crimson of the morn. 
Or gathering from the sky-encircled sea, 
Clouds hide its face and run along its shores, 
Then, rising grandly with the kingly sun, 
Float o'er the heav'ns. And infinite their forms ! 
Diffused and gray and dim, now a mere breath, 
They scarce will stain the blue whose dome roofs round, 
Sublime and vast, our world, while soon they troop 
Along the sky like full-fleeced flocks of spring. 
'Clouds, touch'd as by some hand invisible, 
Will take artistic shapes, and silent form 
A beautiful mosaic of the heav'ns ; 
First leaden, dull, then tinged with bronze and gold, 
Or fringed with red volcanic lines of flame. 
The Rain-Clouds with their vapors fill the air, 
Moist, uniform, and low, while Mmbus high, 
Distent with casual showers, floats by himself, 
Oft o'er the zenith hung. Storm-Clouds, how wild ! 



180 THE CLOUDS. 

By tempests borne behold them sweep near earth, 

Straggling and thin below, ashen above, 

And higher still a midnight black, frowning, 

And terrible — mass piled on dark'ning mass — 

Not torn and shatter'd by the driving winds, 

But in huge solid columns towering far, 

They rush on demon- wing across the sky 

With solemn earnestness that seems 

Intent to reach the limits of the world. 

How calm and white the noble Cumulus ! 

Great King of Clouds, silent and grand and high, 

His throne push'd forth, grows vast as Heav'n itself — 

Blanc lifted into air — rather all Alps — 

Peak upon snowy peak, and ridge on ridge, 

With ever-changing tops, involved and round, 

That circle with a boiling whirlpool's force, 

By the quick lightnings cross'd, while from their deep 

Ketiring vales growl low the summer thunders. 

Gorgeous the pomp of clouds that waits the sun ! 

Behold his heralds flaming o'er the east ! 

A fringe ! a belt ! fold burnishing o'er fold ! 

What hues ! what forms ! varieties of glory ! 

Purple and gold, and mountains bright of flame ! 

Heav'n's resplendent wealth pour'd out on the mists, 

That curl, and glow, and burn as lifts the sun, 

Mid floods of rays, his head above the world 

In silent, dazzling, kingly majesty ! 

The evening's tints how rich and delicate ! 

Those crimson stains, those vistas in the sky 



THE CLOUDS. 181 

That fade into infinity, with hues 

Serene and exquisite ! Those silver lines ! 

Those isles of light ! Those palaces of gold 

Where angels watch, and wave their glittering wings ! 

Glory so bright, yet oft by man unseen, 

Streaming o'er Heav'n effulgence like God's throne ! 

Nor, ye Clouds, are ye but painted splendors 

Born to please the eye ! Rains do form in you 

To feed the world ! Keep in the skies your drops, 

And flowers fall from their stems, and forests die, 

And harvests fail, and cease the murmuring streams ! 

Nay ! seas would vanish in the burning suns, 

And, void of you, our earth would roll a tomb. 

Ye bright, fantastic shapes that deck the skies, 

Our hope and life, floating from land and sea 

Aloft o'er Heav'n, rise, Clouds, in beauty rise, 

Wafting like fragrance from the censer's gold, 

Glowing and pure, the grateful love of Earth ! 



BOABDIL'S LAMENT ON THE HILL OF 
TEARS. 

G KAN ADA ! thy king weeps in sight of thy walls ; 
His crown on his foe, a lone exile he stands ; 
And, his heart left behind in Alhambra's halls, 
He goes for his grave to far infidel lands. 

In Mem'ry how fair groves, fountains, and bowers, 
The silver of moonlight o'er Alhambra's art ! 

A lute's note of love steals aloft to those towers 
As mine once arose to the maid of my heart. 

Hark ! festival music swells high on the air, v 
Gay forms of dancers float again o'er my sight ! 

I seem on my throne mid the brave and the fair, 

As Alhambra's glories stream wide through the night. 

In palace and street turban'd heads I behold ! 

My steed paws the street and my banner 's unfurl'd ! 
Bright gleam from yon minarets crescents of gold ! 

Bride of Heav'n, Granada smiles Queen of the world ! 

'T is Fancy's false dream, and thy glory is gloom ! 

By cannon I see thy tall battlements torn ! 
No rose on thy wall ! on the orange no bloom ! 

Thy knights are in chains, and an exile I mourn. 



BOABDWS LAMENT. 183 

Yes ! Infidel swords in thy streets flash their flames, 
And Infidel songs e'en now burst from thy halls ! 

The Infidel priest thine own Prophet defames ! 
The Infidel cross gleams o'er Alhambra's walls ! 

Be done Allah's will ! This my star did foretell, 
That rose o'er a throne but to set in a grave ; 

The Moor's empire is o'er ! Granada, farewell ! 

Thy king drops a tear for thy fair, good, and brave ! 



AYXA'S REBUKE FOR BOABDIL'S 
LAMENT. 

LAMENTS for the coward ! for frail woman be tears ! 
Let the weak breasts of lovers heave their sighs to 
their fears ! 
But the eye of the warrior with lightnings should flame, 
And the lip of the warrior should battle proclaim. 

Had my purple scarf broken o'er Alhambra's stones, 
And thy proud father stifled the breath of thy moans ; 
Had the Arabic steed whose hoof thunder'd through night 
Hurl'd thee down from his neck o'er the precipice height ; 

Had the stern Hassan's courage but flash'd from thine eye ; 
Thy banner had Zagal wide unfurl'd to the sky ; 
Had chivalrous Musa worn thy crest and thy crown, 
And thy steel gleam'd in death where thy gold was paid 
down; 

Had the zeal of the Christian burn'd hot in thy soul 
When we saw o'er our hills his curs'd Cross first unroll ; 
Had thy mother's own heart in thy bosom beat warm, 
Spurning Infidel leagues, daring battle's wild storm, — 



AYXA'S REBUKE. 185 

Then, Granada, thy towers would have stood on the earth ; 
There no Infidel guard, there no Infidel mirth ; 
And on Alhambra now no Cross would be seen, 
Where the Crescent in glory flash'd for ages its sheen. 

Oh, Boabdil ! he who would rule must be brave, 
And if reft of a throne must choose next a grave. 
'T was not Fate by thy star sank Granada in gloom ; 
But thy weak, coward heart is thine empire's sad tomb. 



THE DEITY. 

OGOD, Thy temple is Infinitude 
Enshrining time and space and worlds, — the All ! 
Before creation was at Thy command 
In solitude sublime Thy majesty! 
Yes ! Being's chain begins and ends in Thee, — 
From and by and for whom is existence. 
In the wild mystic circuits of their change, 
Impell'd by Thee, the elements combine. 
Light shines Thy glory circled in vast suns, 
Diffusing thence Thy beams to glimmering worlds. 
Th' electric essence bursting from the clouds 
In thunder-bolts or tamed to flash man's thought, 
A universal force, the subtle link 
Of flesh and soul, Thine own volition darts. 
Form, Number, Law, are what but Thee express'd, 
And Beauty, Grandeur, and Sublimity ? 
Thy colors paint the world ; Thy hand bends round 
The glittering rainbow's arch. Majestic stands in Thee 
The dome of Heav'n. Thy breath the breeze 
That lifts the flower, and curls the wave, and steals 
O'er murmuring leaves to cool the fever'd brow. 
Seasons from Thee roll, Thy visible beauty. 
Storms, billows, earthquakes, motions of Thy will, 
And souls, immortal sparks struck out from Thee ! 
Thy Power the bond, Thy Intellect the guide, 
Thy Presence the circumference of all ! 



SHADOWS. 

DEEP in our gleaming river, 
Amid the mirror d trees, 
Yon elm's great branches quiver 
When rippling breathes a breeze. 

Trunk, branch, and leaf appearing, 

I see inverted lie, 
And shape that elm uprearing 

Its top into the sky. 

Its image true is shimmering 
In its deep liquid glass ; 

Or dim, or bright, or glimmering 
As cloud and sunshine pass. 

Thus in my soul reflected 
Ear forms of Heav'n appear, 

Confused, reversed, affected 
By every smile and tear. 

But an eternal morning 

For these dim shapes of time 

Will show — change ever-scorning 
Originals sublime. 



LIBERTY. 

* r I ^ IS not the chain that makes the slave, 
A Since fetter'd for the right, 

Mid dungeon-gloom will lie the brave 
In liberty and light. 

And let the baffled tyrants know 

That while the flesh they kill, 
Each scorching flame, each mangling blow, 

Triumphant makes the will. 

The martyr- victor they behold 

Majestic in his chain ; 
Unawed by power, unbought by gold, 

Unterrified by pain ! 

If wrong a universe could pile 

On his exulting soul, 
Amid a wreck of worlds he 'd smile 

Uncrush'd beneath the whole. 



SONG OF THE FOURTH DAY. 

CRY aloud ! cry aloud ! all-hail the Kingly Sun ! 
On his throne without a cloud, his high reign he 
hath begun. 
Cry aloud ! cry aloud ! the cherubim should sing ! 
May this monarch bright and proud, life and glory ever 
fling! 

In whispers we will sing as comes the Queen of Night. 
Oh, how beautiful a thing, like a spirit of the light ! 
Low breathe the softest string, as bright she lifts her face, 
As she sails without a wing, and for ages be her race ! 

Oh, be mute ! Oh, be mute ! the stars are in the sky. 
Oh, stop the harp and lute as the glory passeth by ! 
They glitter as they move along their march sublime ; 
Let them fling their light of love over all the night of 
time ! 

To Him be all the praise from whom the splendors came ! 
Oh, most wonderful His ways, and Jehovah is His name ! 
Are His worlds o'er heav'n sown, like gems which beauty 

grace ? 
What the brightness of His throne ! what the glory of His 

face ! 



OUR FLAG. 



FLAG of Beauty ! wide and high, 
Earth saw thee given to the sky 
In Freedom's night : 
Flashing then o'er battle-fires, 
Thee a gazing world admires, 
Onward borne by our brave sires 
To Freedom's light. 

Flag of Freedom ! where a spot 
Darkening did thy beauty blot 

No stain we see ; 
Glad to Heav'n our song we raise. 
Nations swell the voice of praise ! 
Every star floats in the blaze 

Of Liberty. 

Flag of Promise ! let a world 
Wide thy glories view unfurl'd 

O'er land and sea ! 
Float ! forever gone thy stains ! 
Float ! till earth has burst her chains ! 
Float ! while heav'n bends o'er our plains, 

With eagles free! 



OUR FLAG. 191 

Flag of Glory ! fly no more 
Where mid battle's thunder-roar 

Fierce brothers slay ! 
Glow now love where once glared ire ! 
Never may a star expire 
Till the heav'ns in final fire 

Have pass'd away ! 



LEAVES. 

WHEN joyous Spring first clothed the trees, 
How beautiful and bright 
The leaves were dancing in the breeze, 
And flashing in the light ! 

While Summer glow'd with fiery breath, 

Fresh vigor still they found, 
And laugh'd away the spectre Death, 

And tinkling spurn'd the ground. 

With dying glories Autumn came 

Before chill Winter's gloom, 
And kindled his funereal flame 

That decks leaves for the tomb. 

Now, crisp'd and brown and torn and dry 

Before the tempest's breath, 
O'er heaven and earth they whirling fly, 

The saddest types of death. 

But as from leaves in dark decay 

Majestic forests rise, 
Up we will spring in Life's great day 

Immortal for the skies. 



A SONG IN HEAVEN TO HOME. 

OH ! sweet Home of my Childhood, I think of thee 
now, 
With the light of this glory so bright on my brow ; 
Since 't was Heav'n ordain'd thee, dear place of my birth, 
Here, here, I '11 forget thee never more than on earth. 

Oh, Home of my Childhood ! when the angels do sing 
In their rapture about the high throne of their King, 
As I shine with the throDg, as I gaze through the light, 
There thy soft tender image will float o'er my sight. 

And as long as the ages eternal shall roll 
Their fresh tides of glory still more bright o'er a soul, 
Ever, Home of my Childhood, thy mem'ry will be, 
As the years shall flow onward, so much dearer to me. 



13 



ABOVE. 

HOW the winds are ever blowing, 
Which the flying clouds compel ! 
How the streams are ever flowing 
The majestic seas to swell! 

How the golden mists, ascending 
To the sun from ocean's face, 

Drop the rain by Heav'n's intending, 
Rills and rivers to replace ! 

Day and night o'er earth are throwing 
Both their brightness and their gloom, 

While Death, chasing Life, is mowing 
Ceaseless harvests for the tomb. 

Seasons pass, and Time advancing 
Makes the empires rise and fall, 

Till man sees, wherever glancing, 
Desolations which appall. 

But above are always glowing 
Mystic worlds serenely bright, 

With no tempests madly blowing, 
With no shadows of the night. 



ABOVE. 195 

O'er earth's changes they are sweeping 

In serenity sublime, 
Held by Him within whose keeping 

Are Eternity and Time. 

Ever could their spheres, decaying, 

Be hurl'd back into night, 
Soul, believing and obeying, 

Thy Eternity is light. 



THE RAINBOW. 

MYSTEEIOUS Bow ! born from the rain and light, 
How silently thine arch is flung o'er heav'n ! 
What Power invisible arrests his beams 
Bright flashing from the sun, their hues untwists, 
And curves them o'er our world in majesty ? 
Round, matchless Form ! do spirits in thee dwell, 
And bend thee down the sky, and weave thy charms, 
And run along thy glittering sides, and smile 
From thee o'er man rejoicing in thy peace ? 
Who lifts into the air these tints of earth, 
The soft green of leaves, the violet's hue, 
The gold of fruits, the crimson of the rose, 
And all the varied garniture of seasons ? 
'T was God thy grace conceived ! He breathes thy hues ; 
He hangs thee in the cloud, His pledge of peace ; 
He bends thee round across the lonely sea 
In which thy glory curves to tinge its waves. 
O'er boundless plains thy circling colors smile, 
Or soar aloft to span the gloom of woods, 
While towering high into thy gorgeous tints 
The spires of cities float. Grandly o'er vales, 
Pillar'd on mountain-tops, great Bow of Light, 
Majestically high thy glory stands, 
Bright type of Love, uniting Earth and Heav'n ! 



ISRAEL'S MARCH-WORD. 

FOEWAED ! T is Jehovah's cloud 
Leads Israel to the sea ! 
Forward ! Egypt fierce and proud 
Clanks chains behind the free ! 

Forward ! Waves, thy mountain-walls, 
Shall tower along thy way ! 

Forward I When thy Maker calls 
'T is madness to delay. 

Forward ! Where yon guiding glow 
Moves through the parted deep, 

Pharaoh shall lie buried low, 
In death his minions sleep. 

Forward ! In yon cloud and fire 

Jehovah makes His shrine. 
Forward ! Neither stop nor tire, 

And what is best is thine. 

Forward, Israel ! fear no foes ! 

Thy rest is o'er the sea ; 
Milk there with the honey flows ; 

The grape there waits for thee. 



198 ISRAEL'S MARCH-WORD. 

Forward ! Heav'n's own fire shall die, 
And Heav'n's own manna cease ; 

But Jehovah thy supply, 

Thy Bread, thy Light, thy Peace. 



THE HEART'S MASTER. 



WHEN Morning pencils on her bright'ning sky 
The first faint traceries of the coming day, 
One low lone bird will trill its melody 
Eesponsive to a solitary ray. 
But as the sun floods heav'n and earth with gold, 
Each leaf grows tremulous with exulting strains, 
That gushing, mingling, swelling high, are roll'd 
Till orchestras burst out from hills and dales and plains. 

And thus from some cathedral's solemn walls 
A single voice will chant in melting tone, 
While from a single stop the organ calls, 
Thund'rous and deep, its supplicating moan. 
Now, hark ! each tongue, each key, wakes music round 
Peal upon peal, on billows billows rise, 
Till all the temple shakes with bursting sound 
From that majestic choir which even thrills the skies. 

In some lone vale of Heav'n an angel strays 

To view its glories in soft mellow 'd light : 

See ! o'er his harp involuntary plays 

His trembling hand, — his lip moves to the sight ; 



200 THE HEART'S MASTER. 

One murmuring strain awakes a thousand strings : 
Lofty and full, a gathering tide soon breaks; 
Voice answers voice, to seraph seraph sings, 
And in the mingling praise a universe partakes. 

And thus ! Christian, is it with thy heart. 
Each single chord with earthly music thrills ; 
Wife, parent, child, and country have their part ; 
When Friendship strikes her string, pure rapture fills. 
But only Christ, the Master, wakes the whole, 
Can touch each key, can harmonize each tone, 
And through His Cross stir love through all the soul, 
To burst, Immortal King, in songs around Thy throne ! 



OUR COUNTRY. 

COME, Freedom's sons ! unite 
Beneath our Flag of Light, 
One, strong, and true ! 
Ours is the furnace-blast ; 
Ours is the old world's past ; 
Ours is the work to cast 
All into new ! 

Ye men of every race, 

Where wave our stars find place 

And hope and rest ! 
Your blood with ours must flow; 
Your life with ours must grow 
Till we a manhood show, 

Earth's last and best. 

'T was o'er the far East first 
The light of Empire burst 

With orient gleams : 
But Westward since its way ! 
Here let its glories stay, 
Back-flashing earth's grand day 

In Freedom's beams ! 



SERENADE. 



SLEEP, Love, with smiling dreams ! 
Bright o'er thy bed 
Some rosy head ! 
Light-wing'd the boy-god gleams. 
Sleep, Love ! 

Sleep, till his arrow flies. 

Twang, twang, the dart 

Goes to thy heart ; 
He laughing mounts the skies. 
Sleep, Love ! 

Wake, Love, and see the moon ! 

Beam like yon star, 

But not afar, 
And fling a kiss down soon ; 
Wake, Love ! 



MADRIGAL. 



OPEN, Love, thy lattice wide ; 
Let the moonbeam pass ! 
See it through the branches glide ; 
See it on the grass ! 

Open, Love, thy lattice now ; 

Let the breeze come through ! 
Let it play around thy brow, 

And thy bosom woo ! 

Open, Love, the lattice, while 

I gaze up on thee ; 
Let yon star-beam kiss a smile 

From thy lip to me ! 

Love, thy lattice wide, wide fling ! 

Be like yon bright sky ; 
While the sea is murmuring, 

It bends lovingly. 



ON A BIRTHDAY. 



MEMOEY, Love, recalls the day 
When morning shade and sunlight lay 
Upon the grass ; 
The heav'ns smil'd down through deeps of blue, 
The rose breath'd fragrance from its dew, 
Earth robed herself in orient hue, 
To see thee pass. 

Thy cheek was bloom, thine eye was light, 
And love and hope and beauty bright 

Were in thy face ; 
As memory sees thee through the years, 
Untouch'd by time, undimm'd by tears, 
No flow'r when opening spring appears 

Unfolds such grace. 

Since, on life's path, the cloud and storm 
Have sometimes darken'd round thy form 

And swept thy sky ; 
Yet trial's years in heart and brow 
Have made thee fairer to me now 
Than when in youth thy marriage vow 

Brighten'd mine eye. 



ON A BIRTHDAY. 205 

If, blushing round some parent rose, 

The sweet buds burst, the gay flow'r glows, 

Beneath green trees ; 
But statelier its maternal pride 
To see such beauty at its side, 
And know that mingling perfumes glide 

Out on the breeze. 



SOLICITUDE. 

ITEEMBLE, Love, when in my heart 
I see thine image lie ; 
To me bright beauty, which no art 
Could from the dreams of genius start 
In forms to please the eye. 

The morning heav'ns which blush and glow 

Reflected in the stream, 
But on its surface splendors throw, 
Nor waters tinge that glide below, 

Unconscious of a beam. 

Thy love through all my being reigns, 

As when the painter's dye 
Each canvas-thread pervades and stains, 
And if a fragment but remains 

Its colors you descry. 

I start to hear my heart-strings break, — 

Each life-hope rent away ; 
The ruin fancy death could make, 
The weary blank, the dull cold ache, 

The midnight where smiled day. 



SOLICITUDE. 207 

Then Faith takes wing, — beyond the tomb, 

In God's eternal sky, 
Our love shall live where shades no gloom, 
And Christ to all imparts the bloom 

Of Immortality. 



REGRET. 



A 



TEAKFUX mourner kneels beside a grave 



Along whose green is mingling autumn's gold, 
While through the hazy mists mute branches wave, 
And crimson leaves a dying year unfold. 

Back from the mystic past what mem'ries teem ! 

A bride's bright beauty smiling rises now ; 
In evening's hush beside the moonlit stream 

He hears again the silver-whisper'd vow. 

The white-robed priest, the brilliant festal throng, 
The rainbow glory Hope o'er youth did throw, 

The wedded years, like golden light and song, 
Gild e'en the tomb with momentary glow. 

But why that cloud as shakes yon kneeling form ? 

Why does a tear-drop burn the throbbing eye ? 
Thus from the hills will sweep the midnight storm 

To veil the summer moon and tranquil sky. 

Does a wife's death-scene make such anguish start ? — 
The last seen smile, the agonized farewell, 

The life-ties tearing from an aching heart, — 
That pang of lonely grief we may not tell ? 



REGRET. 209 

Ah, no ! 't is but a word spreads o'er this gloom 

Whose tone once thrill'd the ear that sleeps with pain, 

And now comes thundering from the solemn tomb, 
By memory waked, till heard through years again. 

Oh ! when we drop upon the grave a tear, 
And Love rolls back the curtains of the past, 

May all its scenes unstain'd and bright appear, 
Nor dark Eegret with clouds the heart o'ercast ! 



14 



THE USEFUL AND THE BEAUTIFUL. 



'' I s IS only when rough roots below 

A Unsightly masses tangled throw 
Both deep and wide, 
Majestically the tree can rise, 
Which time and storm to age defies, 
In stately pride. 

Unpolish'd rocks, from hills convey'd, 
Deep in the solid earth are laid 

By careful hands, 
Before the house where art would reign 
Lifts high its beauty from the plain 

And stately stands. 

If forms which please, profuse and bright, 
Their brilliant colors flash to sight 

And charm the view, 
Yet, firm as their Almighty Cause, 
Has Reason all things bound in laws 

As numbers true. 



THE USEFUL AND THE BEAUTIFUL. 211 

Learn, while the Beautiful may smile 
From flower to star, arid care beguile, 

Life's charm and grace, 
The Useful yet beneath must lie 
All loveliness of earth and sky, 

Creation's base. 



HEAVEN. 

ON earth there was in hearts a sigh, 
And the dull throb of pain : 
The tear-drop trembled in the eye, 
Then fell, to fall again. 

Oh ! Change o'er all a shadow threw, 
His brother Death was there, 

And e'en the sparkle of the dew 
Soon vanish'd into air. 

Wild phantoms o'er the mind would rush, 

With pain the body thrill, 
And ere the brimming cup could blush 

The tempting wine would spill. 

The love that on the warm lip press'd 

To leave its tender kiss, 
Would soon lean o'er a cold, cold breast, 

And find a woe for bliss. 

But here, on all things is the bloom 

Which lives without decay, 
And He who brought us from the tomb 

Makes our immortal day. 



VISIONED NATIONS. 



A CITY, in my dream wide walls enclose, 
And thundering on their top could chariots 
sweep. 
Tier above tier, a terraced garden rose, 
Where ceaseless summer did gay empire keep. 
Mid northern cedars tropic balsams weep, 
And palm-trees throw their shadows on the pine. 
The spreading oak its mountain-roots strikes deep : 
From all earth's climes such bloom of tree and vine, 
That paradise in air mid beauty seem'd to shine. 

O'er wall and garden, mingling with the sky, 
Amid the stars a tower exalts its head 
On which an altar-fire gleams in mine eye, 
And shines like Mars in bloody battle's red, 
As if a flame in air by spirits fed. 
Sublimely from its height Chaldeans gazed, 
And mapp'd the stars, conversing with the dead. 
Oh, as that light across my vision blazed, 
Upon its lofty glare I look'd, and was amazed. 



214 VI SI ONE D NATIONS. 

Below, as for the monarch of the earth, 
Piled on a mound a palace I "behold, 
Home of a king who claim'd celestial birth. 
Its pictured walls his battle-deeds unfold 
Where he upon his foes his chariots roll'd. 
Before its portals bulls I see in stone, 
With human heads, gigantic in their mould, 
And wing'd, since wisdom, strength, and speed alone 
Can keep a subject world beneath an empire's throne. 

Now open fly the gates of glittering brass, 
And shouts of armies burst out on mine ear. 
Behind war-chariots fetter'd captives pass 
While battle-flags o'er kings in chains appear. 
The spoils of conquer'd man seem gather'd here : 
Throned over all a sceptred monarch rode 
Whose glance imperial struck the world with fear. 
Vast Babylon he built for his abode, — 
Earth shook beneath his wheels as if she felt a load. 

The scene is changed ! wild sounds I hear arise ! 
Lights from yon palace flash through midnight far. 
'T is now the Persian's shouts that cleave the skies ; 
'T is now ascends the Persian's conquering star 
To glare mid clouds of blood o'er scenes of war. 
Upon a banquet-floor a headless king 
I see whose royal beauty red wounds mar. 
The Grecian madman next will armies bring, 
And Battle, wave on wave, o'er nations ruin fling. 



VI SI NED NATIONS. 215 

Babylon, lo, thy palaces are dust ! 
I hear the owl's sad hoot, the bittern's cry. 
Dark on thine empire's crown a cycle's rust ! 
Cold as a ghost that shivers with a sigh, 
A spectral moon smiles on thee from her sky. 
The lone fox barks to the dread serpent's hiss, 
And at the lion's growl the jackals fly. 
Nor from the scene the midnight bat I miss, 
Which loves nor sight nor sound that tells of mortal bliss. 

'T is desolation all, and ghastly death. 
Is this the spot where millions lived and died ? 
Beat here the pulse of joy to music's breath ? 
Celestial victory flashing at his side 
Did here the monarch in his glory ride 
While nations yell'd the triumph to behold ? 
This ruin once the seat of power and pride, 
Where War o'er earth his conquering chariots roll'd ? 
Here Babylon once smiled crown'd with imperial gold. 

Yon fleshless skull, a king's, the worm disdains, 
And o'er it crawls in vain to find a meal. 
Say, was this hole an ear where festal strains, 
And shouts exulting burst with rapturing peal ? 
Did ever through that eyeless socket steal 
Warm looks of love, and bright as morning's ray ? 
Oh, on those mouldering bones grew flesh to feel 
In close embrace the beating heart's wild play ? 
Now, grave on grave, an empire's dust where death has sway ! 



216 VI SI ONE D NATIONS. 

I see the Pyramids along the Nile ! 
From earth to cloud grim mountains these of stone ! 
In vain, ye kings, such monuments ye pile 
To guard your dust which shall be sold and shown ! 
Not safe from pilfering greed one royal bone ! 
Once on yon top sublime an altar-fire 
Flung o'er the land its beams by night- winds blown ; 
The light is out on the immortal pyre 
Where plundering Arabs climb, and idling men admire. 

Your column'd grandeur, matchless, thrills us yet, 
Luxor and Karnak, shatter'd as ye stand ; 
And, Thebes and Memphis, though your sun has set, 
Your lingering glory glows o'er all the land. 
Genius your ruins rules with high command. 
Ye shine like stars that blaze when day has died ! 
Oh, what your power fresh from the sculptor's hand ? 
Yet, more, maybe, than in noon's dazzling pride 
Ye charm like moonlit clouds that in the midnight glide. 

I turn to Greece ! Her isles, how sweet they smile, 
Blooming beneath the blue of sky and sea ! 
Each shore, each bay, each cliff, and mountain-pile, 
Which o'er those glittering waves looks bright on me, 
Is shrined in some immortal memory ! 
Gay o'er your waves now morning flings her kiss 
Where thundering Grecians made the Persian flee ! 
Then Battle, bursting o'er a scene like this, 
Her din Thermopylae roll'd back to Salamis. 



VI SI ONE D NATIONS. 217 

Now, pride of Greece, Acropolis, to thee 
I look with beating heart and glowing eye ! 
The temple thine of wingless Victory ; 
Immortal shrines as fair as thine are nigh, 
While over earth and mingling with her sky 
Athena lifts her head into the light, 
Of each true Attic heart the dream and sigh, 
Whose conquering symbol of Olympian might 
Towers flashing onward Greece to triumph in the fight. 

Thou, pillar'd Parthenon, oh, why no more 
On thine old glory may not Athens gaze ? 
Perfection was in man a dream before 
Art realized in thee its scatter'd rays. 
Around thy ruins yet a splendor plays ; 
Though shatter'd now by storm and fire and shell, 
Aloft still stand some wrecks of grander days. 
Not Turk nor Time so mar thy citadel 
But those lone columns left thy fame will ages tell. 

Acropolis ! I see thee through my tears. 
Firm as thy rocks, about thee once grew men ; 
Thy air breathed fire in souls that knew no fears ; 
Thy sky it was that freedom nurtured then ; 
Thy heroes bled for Greece on mount and glen. 
From such sires slaves ! No, Athens ! no, not this ! 
Yet Glory thy bright brow shall gild again. 
Bold mountains, tower ye not on Greece to hiss ! 
Ye saw the deeds of Marathon and Salamis ! 



218 VISION ED NATIONS. 

Lo, Persia reels before the Grecian arms, 
And at Arbela finds an empire's grave ! 
Then Tyrus shook with battle's wild alarms, 
Bridged for her death her guardian ocean- wave. 
Judea hears the Macedonian rave 
Soothed by her vision'd priest in grand attire. 
'T is Afric's sands the madman next will brave, 
Befool'd to seek the fame of Jove his sire ; 
Babylon riot hears, and sees the wretch expire ! 

He left behind what brood on Egypt's soil ! 
Learning and Lust in royal monsters wed, 
And the old land of kings vile tyrants spoil. 
In Cleopatra their last fire was fed 
When to her arms imperial Caesar sped, 
And Nilus heard a low voluptuous sound 
As glides the Queen embracing on her bed. 
Antonius next enclasps the siren round, 
And, last, caressing asps her tempting bosom found. 

Imperial victors, you I now behold 
Throned over earth, and nations at your feet. 
See ! from all lands their spoils to Eome are roll'd, 
And on the Capitol crown'd conquerors meet, 
Whom, as their gods, with shouts the people greet ! 
The fetter'd Briton sees the Scythian's chains, 
And Jew and Goth the triumph proud complete. 
Kings are her slaves, whom Eome by valor gains 
To cringe beneath the glance their manacles disdains. 



VISIONED NATIONS. 219 

I see the chariot glittering with its spoil ; 
I see aloft the victor on his throne ; 
I see the crown, rewarding all his toil, 
His temple circle with its laurell'd zone ; 
I see the forms that Art has carved in stone 
To make the Capitol with beauty beam. 
Adored by all, the hero stands alone, 
Within his lordly eye a conqueror's gleam. 
Yes, he a mortal thing a worshipp'd god doth seem ! 

I see the Coliseum's galleried crowd ; 
I see barbarians kill while Eomans smile ; 
I see uncaged the wild beasts, fierce and loud ; 
I see the gory dead in ghastly pile ; 
I see where blood-spots trampled sands defile, 
And him enthroned I see at whose command, 
From India's shore to Britain's gleaming isle, 
Imbruted men and beasts of every land 
Begin the work of death on the arena's sand. 

Who wears that crown ? Whom does that purple fold ? 
Who sways a world from that imperial throne ? 
Is it a man of kingly soul and mould ? 
No, 'tis a wretch, with tyrant pride upblown, 
Who sceptred sits, and calls the world his own ! 
Lust in his eye and murder in his soul, 
When laughs this human ape, the nations groan. 
Does Heaven or Hell such monster give control ? 
He, loathed and scorn'd by earth, her despot rules the 
whole. 



220 VISIONED NATIONS. 

Yes ! Kome, such farce of blood is play'd in thee ! 
Enthroned a demon brute whom all men spurn ! 
The wretch they jeer, yet say their king must be. 
Eise, Goth and Vandal, rise ! let vengeance burn ! 
Down o'er the Danube let your wild hosts turn! 
Hark, hark ! they come ! on Tiber's shore their yell ! 
Eome, from their swords thy tyrants soon shall learn ! 
Thy gates are forced ! blind furies on compel ! 
Now Heaven to punish earth hurls down the torch of Hell. 

Eed round the Coliseum bursts a blaze ; 
The Pantheon's gods are robed in Gothic tire; 
On Caesar's palace ruin glaring plays ; 
O'er all Eome's hills wild Havoc's flames aspire : 
With torch and sword barbarians glut their ire. 
Hark ! vengeance of the ages in those cries 
Sent down to suffering son from suffering sire ! 
A fated hour they tell to earth and skies ; 
Eternal Justice hears Wrong's long and bitter cries ! 

Gaul, Britain, Carthage, Egypt, Grecia, Tyre, 
Wake from the dead ! Ye ghosts of nations, wake I 
Come now ; come, all ! Here burns Eome's funeral pyre ! 
Let shouts of triumph woe's long silence break ; 
A death-feast now where ye may vengeance slake ! 
Chains for your victors ! flames and dungeon-gloom ! 
Fling ye war's horrors such as eonquerors make ! 
Back from the past through portals of each tomb, 
Shriek loud in air your joy at Heaven's predestined doom • 



VISIONED NATIONS. 221 

For pagan gods, lo, Christian saints appear ; 
Prayers now to Peter once by Jove received. 
Hark ! Juno's children cry in Mary's ear ; 
Apostles are adored, but not believed. 
'T is Eome's old incense smokes, and men deceived 
On angels call, to mortals build the shrine, 
Till earth with idols Heaven again has grieved. 
Oh, ever, man, is such defilement thine ? 
Breathe over his dead soul, Eternal Power Divine ! 

Encircled on his head a triple crown, 
Whose diamonds blaze out from a rim of gold, 
And with imperial scarlet flowing down, 
In Eome a pontiff-monarch I behold, — 
A new impurpled Csesar for the old ! 
His mitre-diadem salutes mine eye 
Within a temple of Olympian mould. 
Louder than pagan shouts from earth to sky, 
Hark ! to the Pope, their Lord, adoring Christians cry ! 

But, lo ! the morn ! the morn ! earth's shadows flee. 
From Luther's cell bursts forth an age of light ; 
One Bible chain'd a fetter'd world sets free ; 
One monk all monarch pontiffs shakes with fright. 
See ! states and empires wake to faith and right. 
Tradition sinks ! Humanity will soar ! 
Wide beams the Bible over Time's old night ! 
Mankind advances to recede no more, — 
Millennial day at last a world of joy shines o'er ! 



MY POLITICAL MENAGERIE. 



MY political menagerie of beasts, both tame and wild, 
I '11 show now to the public, which here on me 
has smiled ; 
Lo, from every land and clime the curious creatures come : 
And all so very hungry, and most so very dumb. 



First, behold the Eel Political, which can so turn and 

twist, 
Like his brother in the stream, which slips out from your 

fist, 
Who, if you slash and skin him, yet will wriggle in the 

pot, — 
Yes ; wriggle when he 's living, and wriggle when he 's not. 



The Political Hyena, like his cousin, o'er a grave 

Will scent the flesh he wants below, and look so very 

brave : 
How hungry is his midnight yell, how fierce his flashing 

eye, 

Until the daylight on his bone will make the coward fly ! 



MY POLITICAL MENAGERIE. 223 

Next, Political my Peacock ! his tail spreads in the air 
To make the gaping crowd at his bright colors stare ; 
He struts in brilliant feathers, and looks so very fine 
It 's hard to think 't is stolen plumes that mid his splen- 
dors shine. 



Then the wily Snake Political, a serpent in the grass ! 
And so graceful he, tho' deadly, that men will let him pass ; 
His glitter is most beautiful, but with no warning hiss, 
At friend and foe he strikes his fang, and seldom makes a 
miss. 



Political the Lion, he will always fare the worst : 
'T is because he is magnanimous he seems to be so curst ; 
The other beasts who envy him, rush on him, yell, and bite> 
And by their rage and numbers they kill their king in 
fight. 

And Political the People, are ye like the ass and mule, 
That all these meaner brutes live on you and befool ? 
Arise ye in your majesty, and ye from henceforth show 
The Almighty made you men to rule the beasts below ! 



OUR STARS ON THE SEA. 

HUEEAH ! our stars rise o'er the sea. 
Yon flag our sires unfurl'd ; 
They shed their blood for it, and we 
Will guard it o'er the world. 

Hurrah ! our stars gleam from our mast, 

And brighten every eye ; 
Mid battle's rage and skies o'ercast, 

Our banner still shall fly. 

Hurrah ! our stars beam o'er the free, 
And shine and float for them : 

A sign to earth of liberty, 
And every star a gem. 

Hurrah ! hurrah ! men of the sea ! 

What glories in our past ! 
Our ocean heroes died that we 

Might make those glories last. 



THE OWL. 

THE owl, the owl is the brave bird for me. 
Oh ! I love his note from the midnight tree, 
Where he winks, 
And he blinks, 
And he blinks, 
And he winks, 
And he looks so wise 
From his two big eyes. 

The owl, the owl, since he loves not the sun, 
Hoots in the night, which he wishes ne'er done. 
While he blinks, 
And he winks, 
And he winks, 
And he blinks, 
And he looks so wise 
From his two big eyes. 

The owl, the owl, as the bright morning breaks, 
See, lone to his cave his glad way he takes ; 
There he winks, 
And he blinks, 
And he blinks, 
And he winks, 
And he looks so wise 
From his two big eyes. 
15 



THE LARK. 

SEE ! the lark has left his nest : 
'T was a sunbeam broke his rest ; 
Touch'd him with immortal light ; 
Wing'd him from our human sight. 
Claiming his celestial birth, 
He has spurn'd these mists of earth. 
Now he fades above our view, 
Mingling with his heaven's own blue, 
But, invisible, will sing, 
Like some bright cherubic thing, 
And the higher he may soar 
Louder will his music pour, 
Since alone his native light 
Tunes his song of flame aright. 
Hark ! his loftiest note he tries 
Hid sublimest in the skies ! 



MY ROSE. 

MY morning Eose, crown'd Queen of flowers, 
What makes thy regal hues ? 
Is it the drops of summer showers, 
Or sparkle of the dews ? 

Oh, can that dark, repulsive earth 

Which round thy roots is seen, 
Give this delicious fragrance birth, 

And paint thy living green ? 

Or do these whispers of the air 

Waving thy graceful stem 
A beauty give which kings despair 

To purchase in a gem ? 

Perchance, from golden realms of light 

Some glancing sunbeam weaves 
This bloom of glory, rich and bright, 

That lingers in thy leaves. 

Or with the blushes of the morn 

From heav'n an angel flies, 
And spreads these colors which adorn, 

The rivals of his skies. 



228 MY ROSE. 

Can a celestial spirit hide 
Now in thy circling bloom, 

And lift thy stem in stately pride 
And shed thy sweet perfume ? 

My Queenly Rose ! what mystic power, 
What more than regal birth, 

Brings thee, a perishable flower, 
The homage of the earth ? 

The eternal thought of God thou art, 

His beauty to enshrine : 
The charm that binds thee to each heart 

Resistless, is divine. 



THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 

CAN, Spirit ! thine Ideal 
Be obscured by mists of earth, 
While this dull, exacting Eeal 
Stifles a celestial birth ? 

Why thrill senses form'd for pleasure 

With this agony of pain ? 
Why do powers without a measure 

Never here their sphere attain ? 

Why are plans forever failing 

In this selfishness of strife ? 
Why are hearts forever wailing, 

Crush'd beneath the load of life ? 

Oh ! must we, to Heav'n aspiring, 
By earth's cares and duties bound, 

Sink till, with the struggle tiring, 
Grovelling we love the ground ? 

Spirit, trust ! since all is tending 
To thy work and growth above, 

Where thy powers will live, ascending 
In eternal truth and love. 



230 THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 

Fix'd in Heav'n our grand Ideal, 
Bright beyond the clouds of time, 

Then, pursued on earth the Eeal, 
Life, made true, becomes sublime. 



CONGRESS 




